Part of Me

Damaged Hearts - 2

A. C. Arthur

CHAPTER 1

Lidia

Three months ago

He kissed me.

Brayden Sanchez kissed me, Lidia Morales.

No, to be fair, it wasn’t just a kiss, it was like he was making love to my mouth. If that’s at all possible. I’m almost positive it is, because that’s exactly how I felt when it was happening.

We’d been studying for finals at the end of the spring semester of our junior year. Brayden was smart and the best fighter I knew, but he didn’t like sitting in class and hated the idea of written tests to gauge what someone did or didn’t know. Brayden was definitely more of a physical type of guy. I was getting the full meaning of those words.

“Life’s about applying what you know in everyday scenarios. Calculus is not going to help me in the war against the rogues,” he’d complained when I’d first mentioned I wanted to go to college. I understood because I knew how much he’d detested the tutors we had. The only saving grace was that we were traveling the world, having all types of adventurous escapades in between the schoolwork.

In the end, he’d enrolled in Faust University with me. I think the idea of spending four years in lovely Pacifica, California was what finally won him over.

A part of me knew it was a mistake when the decision was made. Brayden and I should have parted ways amicably when we had the chance. I should have continued on to school to pursue the goal of teaching as I’d always planned, the one dream in life I felt like I could actually reach. The one goal in this messy, split life I’d been forced to live that kept me going. And Brayden should have been allowed to do the same thing. He should have headed straight to Havenway to train with the East Coast Faction Leader, to become the Shadow Shifter warrior he’d always wanted to be. Then none of this would have ever happened.

Unfortunately, with all the added traits shadows possessed, re-writing the past wasn’t one of them.

So, we’d been studying for hours and Brayden had just convinced me to have a glass of wine to relax a little. He could tell I was tense because math was not my favorite subject and maybe because I’d just tossed the textbook to the other end of the couch.

“Calm down, you’ll ace this test just like you’ve done all the others in the previous semesters. You’re brilliant,” he’d said, taking a seat beside me, extending the glass my way.

I’d paused with the complaint I was about to rattle off because there was something different about the way he was looking at me. The slow way his arm extended toward me, holding onto the glass a moment longer than necessary when I already had my fingers on the stem. We’d touched before, hell, when we were fifteen and in the rainforests of Sierra Leone and the only shower was a waterfall at the base of a mountain, we’d stripped and bathed there on more than one occasion. Of course, I’d been flat-chested with acne and dirty hair and his two brothers were also with us, so that couldn’t possibly have counted as being intimate.

Still, Brayden and I had known each other for what seemed like all our lives—or at least all of my life since I didn’t really start living until I met the Sanchez family. That means Brayden was like my older brother—him, Aidan, and Caleb. They all acted like they owned me, yet were extremely irritated by me at the same time. And they had sworn to kill any guy that even looked cross-eyed at me. Those are all threats brothers make.

Except Brayden wasn’t looking at me like a brother.

I knew this look. I’d seen it before on guys I went out with, namely Frankie Morrison, the jerk I gave my virginity to after chugging down one too many Blue Moons and popcorn.

Brayden’s dark-eyed gaze—the one I’d always thought was a little on the foreboding side, rather than sexy—had latched onto mine and held me in a vise grip. I couldn’t move, couldn’t think past his eyes and couldn’t get that glass up to my lips to take the sip I desperately needed.

“Brilliant and beautiful,” he’d said, his voice lowering to a deep whisper.

“I need a drink,” I said, gulping my own spit to assuage my dry throat and giving a little tug to the wineglass he was still holding onto.

He released the glass and I chugged that wine like it was grape juice, dipping my head back to be sure I broke that godforsaken eye hold he had on me. When I was finished Brayden had moved closer, so close I smacked him right across the nose with my glass as I brought it down from my mouth.

He frowned slightly and I laughed to sort of break the “oh-my-god” moment that was hanging around. It didn’t work.

“I’ve gotta do this,” he said, his face steadily inching closer to mine. “I’m gonna die right now if I don’t taste you.”

Whoa, what the hell? Really, Brayden? Are you really sitting on this couch acting like we’re long-lost lovers, or maybe new lovers on that date that leads directly to the bedroom? No, not with me, not with your best friend in the whole freakin’ world, you are not going to play me with your sexy-charming-heavily-accented-voice. Not today.

But yeah, he did and when I say Brayden can kiss any female right out of her panties, I mean every word.

His lips rained down on mine like a sultry summer storm. A soft swipe at first to let me know he was there and to let my body know this was definitely going down with or without its permission. The next contact was with a little more force, his tongue coming out to play a little taste testing. Then he grabbed the back of my head, tilting my head one way and his the other and went in for the kill.

I swear I felt like I was drowning, in his scent, his touch, his taste. Damn, it was all I could do to open my mouth and at least try to act like I wasn’t a gigantic idiot when it came to being kissed. Although, it was quickly apparent that I’d never, ever, been kissed like this. I mean, the whole licking at my lips before delving inside to tangle with my tongue was breathtaking. So much so I hurriedly wrapped my arms around his neck—dropping that damned glass onto the couch—and opened my mouth wider so I could have more.

His shoulders were just awesome. I know I’d seen them before and I’d even touched him, more times than I could count, but my fingers never grasped him like this, felt the sinewy muscle right at my fingertips. There’s no point in lying, I pressed into him hard, rubbing my boobs against his chest, loving the hell out of the way his fingers held the back of my neck so firmly while the other hand raked through my hair. In a minute I was probably going to straddle him, or moan or do something much geekier.

Instead, I pulled back.

Like he was a live electric wire and I’d foolishly touched him while wet. I jerked back so fast I almost flipped over the arm of the chair. Shaking fingers flew to my lips as if I could wipe away the sting of that kiss that still had my lips pulsating.

“You feel it,” Brayden said, out of breath, his dark brown eyes searching my face frantically. “I know you do, Lid, I know you feel this too.”

About three or four words into his comments I was shaking my head, denying this ever happened, refusing to believe he’d invaded our safe and cherished friendship with such a foolish and absurd notion like kissing. What was he thinking?

“Bray,” I started but didn’t really know how to finish.

“No. Don’t you dare lie to me, Lidia. We’re so past the lying stage now. Don’t even think about it, you hear me!” He wasn’t happy, his anger vibrated throughout his toned body, his biceps shaking as he continued to stare at me.

Next he’d get up and he’d pace, then he’d rake his fingers through his raven-black hair and try to take as many deep breaths as it took to calm the hell down. Somehow I sensed that the calm and authoritative Brayden that normally prevailed wasn’t in charge here. The animal in him was struggling to break free as evidenced by the ticking of that muscle in his jaw. The light goatee he’d started growing couldn’t hide that movement, not from me since I knew what to look for where Brayden was concerned.

Plus, I knew personally about the animal trying to emerge because I was feeling the same way, only I hated it. I didn’t want to be this way with Brayden, didn’t want to feel like he could be that one for me, that other half that would complete the me that was created in that damned forest. I simply couldn’t go there, not physically and definitely not mentally. The thought alone was too difficult to comprehend, fear struggling to dominate me. The bottom line was that if I gave in to being with Brayden, I would be accepting the shadow shifter in me. I would be accepting that I was half human, half jaguar with the same genetic make-up as the man who had destroyed my life, betrayed his tribe, and killed humans and shifters alike just for the hell of it.

For me, for everyone involved, that simply was not an option.

Brayden was right about one thing, I’d known this was coming. I’d seen it in his eyes, felt it in the way he talked to me, or stared at me for too long, or touched me when it was really unnecessary. I could just tell we were headed in that direction.

And I’d been too stupid to stop it.

I’d been as reckless and unpredictable as the Elders had said I would become. I was falling into my uncle’s footsteps, becoming the rogue shifter because I didn’t step into line with what I was now presuming was Brayden’s plan for us.

But I wasn’t my uncle. I wasn’t a rogue shifter and I wasn’t going to get sucked up into the romantic and totally hot-as-hell world of Brayden Sanchez.

I just wasn’t.

“We’re not doing this,” I’d told him before standing up and packing up all my books.

His reaction was quick, his words almost desperate as he stood with me. “Don’t go. We can talk about this,” he insisted.

“No. We can’t,” I told him. “We will never talk about this again and it will never happen again. Do you hear me, Brayden? This,” I yelled while moving my arm back and forth motioning to him and me, because my nipples were so hard they ached, my mouth watering for another one of those steamy kisses. “This will never happen again!” I’d said it so empathically Brayden had actually winced.

He grabbed me then, his strong hands gripping my shoulders, pulling me closer to him as he stared down at me.

“Words won’t wish this away, Lidia. You’ve been trying that for way too long. This, as you call it, is inevitable.”

He hadn’t yelled, had actually spoken through clenched teeth, but the intensity of the words was just the same. They vibrated in the air, filling me with such trepidation I wasn’t sure if running was actually an option or not.

I shook my head, answering him and yet not really doing so. “No,” I told him, determined to stick by my decision. “No, this will not happen. I can stop it. I will stop it!” I insisted, pulling out of his grasp and turning away from him.

“Lidia.”

He said my name so simply, so familiarly, I couldn’t help but stop and for endless seconds, consider, wonder.

Then I was moving, grabbing my purse and books and heading for the door.

“Don’t do this, Lidia. You’ll regret it,” he warned.

I was already regretting so much. It was time to make things right, to do the right thing and walk away. It was the only choice I had, the only way to keep us all—especially Brayden—safe.

“I won’t let you do this.” He finished that sentence with a growl, low and deep in his chest.

The sound echoed through the otherwise quiet room and something inside me stirred. It awakened and stretched, began a little purr of its own. I yanked that doorknob so hard and so fast I probably could have torn it straight off. Then I was gone, getting the hell out of his apartment faster than I’d ever moved before. The next day I took my finals and boarded the first plane I could to the summer educational conference I’d already registered for in Los Angeles. And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I didn’t talk to Brayden. Not that day or the days immediately following.

His hadn’t been the first voice I heard when I woke up, either on cell phone or at the door of my apartment yelling about needing breakfast. I hadn’t seen him a thousand times throughout the day or had at least two of my three daily meals with him. And at night when I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, too afraid of the nightmares to fall asleep, Brayden hadn’t called my cell phone or even sent me a text to calm my nerves, to whisper that I’d be okay, that nothing done in dreams could ever hurt me. His warning that I’d regret leaving had echoed in my head every day, several times a day. And in the end, my friend, my confidant hadn’t been there to comfort me, to forgive me, to simply be. That’s what I’d missed most of all.

* * *

Fall semester

Senior year

Brayden said he’d be here even though he hadn’t registered for any classes this semester. He’d even rented a new apartment without the benefit of a roommate to help him pay for it, which perplexed me but I’d vowed to wait until I’d seen him before I started interrogating him. As for me, my schedule was full, with eighteen credits and a part-time job at the bookstore to help with the costs my meager scholarships didn’t meet.

I’d walked back and forth through the main hall of the café where students, some anxious and some not so much, milled around getting dinner and catching up with other students they hadn’t seen over the summer. My two new roommates were somewhere around here collectively ignoring me as I told them there was somebody I needed to find ASAP. I guess they’d assumed it was a guy, as in a guy that I was involved with, but it was just Brayden. Just my best friend.

Who was MIA once again. Slipping my cell from the front pocket of my jeans I was just about to dial his number for the billionth time when a high-pitched giggle caught my attention. I turned to look over at a table about twenty feet away, near the double doors that led to the outside eating area. For whatever reason my senses had been on overdrive today so I felt a little edgy and kind of overstimulated, that’s probably why I could hear this laughter clear across the room and above all the other chatter going on around me. But I couldn’t think any more about that because the person who was doing the laughing was doing it again. And if the shrill, annoying-as-hell sound didn’t make me want to scream, the fact that she was sitting her pert little ass in Brayden’s lap did!

I was not jealous. This is what I repeated to myself the entire time walking over to approach them. I was not jealous that Brayden had a girlfriend, or a friend, or a slut, take your pick. He was certainly free to date whomever he pleased, as was I. But when we’d spent the last three months apart, each of those nights of which I suffered through completely alone, and I’d been texting him like crazy this past week to find out when I would actually see him again, no, he needed to be running to see me, not hugged up with this, this … person!

“Hey,” I managed when I was finally in front of Brayden and the untitled female. “What’s up?”

He’d been sitting with his back pressed against the wall behind him, his legs spread, arms full of the prettily smiling brunette. His head had been down low, like he’d either been listening intently to something the brunette was saying—most likely not—or staring down at all the cleavage she had so boldly on display—more likely. At the sound of my voice or maybe it was the incessantly loud beating of my heart, Brayden lifted his head slowly, those dark, mesmerizing eyes taking me in with a careful gaze.

“Hey, Lidia,” was all he said, the jerk.

He’d shaved the beard and mustache so his face looked even younger than he normally did, but everything else was the same, those hypnotic deep brown eyes, that strong jaw, and dammit, those thick eyebrows and long lashes that I’d always hated him for.

“You comfortable?” I asked trying not to look at the female. My entire body vibrated with this weird energy, like I wanted to do something, needed to break free and…no! I almost screamed the word out loud as I realized exactly what I was feeling. It was a warning, a sense of danger that another part of me was responding to, only I wouldn’t let it.

The Bubbly Brunette chose that moment to speak. “He is and so am I.”

Our gazes connected, mine and hers, and held. Jealousy or warning, I couldn’t tell the difference, the scent of rage filling my nostrils as I attempted to breathe myself calm. I thought about counting sheep or no, maybe daggers, in my mind. Brayden always said I was impulsive and a little on the violent side, so I opted not to add credence to his critique, and chanced a small smile.

“That’s great. I’m Lidia, by the way. I didn’t catch your name,” I spoke in the most cordial voice I was able to conjure.

“I’m Kyra and he’s just too sexy to resist,” she added with a giggle and another snuggle, this time burying her face in the crook of Brayden’s neck.

And that was it for him. Without so much as another word or warning, Brayden was untwining her arms from around his neck and pushing her as gently as he could off his lap so he could stand. It was about time!

“Lidia’s an old friend,” he was saying as Kyra’s big brown eyes stared up at him in question. “And Kyra’s a new friend,” he told me with a half smile.

The half smile that I’d missed more than I was willing to admit.

“Hello, new friend Kyra,” I replied, only to receive a barely tolerant up and down glance from the girl that was a few inches shorter than my five-foot-five stance.

Kyra waved her fingers in my general direction and gave a half-assed “Hey,” before going up on tiptoe to kiss Brayden’s unpuckered lips.

The only reason I didn’t roll my eyes at the entire display was because I refused to stoop to her level or to give Brayden something to gloat about. I was so angry with him at this moment I wanted to punch something. And he knew it, the smug, infuriating jerk knew that I was ready to peel that chick off of him the moment I saw them. Blame it on the temper I’d never been able to tame. Just another part of me that mirrored my uncle the traitor.

Or was there something else? An unknown in this cafeteria putting me on full alert?

“Are you counting backward from one hundred or counting daggers instead?” he asked with a chuckle, nudging me on the shoulder like he used to do when we were younger.

I punched him in his shoulder with much more force. “Neither, for your information.”

He laughed then pulled me to him for one of his terrifically warm and comforting hugs. Even though I was still mad at him, I embraced him because it was what I was used to, what I’d missed all summer.

“You doing okay?” he asked.

“Fine. Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re holding me so tight I can barely breathe,” he said with a chuckle.

“Oh,” I said, thoroughly embarrassed now, and pulling away from him quickly. “I’m fine. Just haven’t seen you in a while.”

Brayden nodded. “Your choice, remember?”

I so did not want to go back over what had happened that day in his apartment or what we’d said to each other. I just wanted to put all that behind us.

“You let me go,” was my immediate retort. I’d thought about it all summer. He hadn’t tried to stop me from walking out and hadn’t come to get me. I wasn’t sure what the politically correct way to feel about that was but I knew for a fact I didn’t like it.

“Never,” was his deep-toned reply. His entire body tensed then, his face going somber, his eyes darkening.

Heat rose instantly from the pit of my stomach, circling up to my breasts, causing my mouth to water. I took a deep breath, counting as slowly as I could as I released it.

“Anyway, I applied for that internship I told you about,” I told him, knowing that changing the subject was my only saving grace. “Hopefully, I’ll get it.”

“You’re really serious about teaching?” he asked, a frown marring an otherwise pretty good-looking face.

“I am.”

He nodded, even though he didn’t agree. Brayden Sanchez was the son of dedicated and loyal Topètenia Shadow Shifters. His parents, Gil and Marta Sanchez, were ambassadors for the tribe and traveled the world in an effort to keep all the Shadow Shifter tribes united. The differences between shape shifters and humans should have been enough to bond the five tribes together forever, but as with every race, there had been dissension. Hell, there’d been dissension within my own family so I could sing that tune all night long.

Instead, I preferred to be thankful for what I had and to look excitedly toward the future—the one I would make on my own. So I loved Gil and Marta Sanchez for taking me in when everyone, including my own family was turning me away, and for teaching me what it meant to be a Shadow Shifter and for not judging me like the rest of the tribe had when my uncle had defected. I was also thankful to them for allowing me to grow up with their three sons, the brothers I never had and three of the closest people in this world to me. Unfortunately, with all that love and encouragement surrounding me, I was still going to end up disappointing them.

“We’ve been over this before, Brayden,” I said trying to reason with him. “I’m not like you and your family.”

“You’re exactly like us,” he said adamantly. “Exactly like you were trained to be.”

I shook my head, not wanting to go down this road with him again, especially after the time we’d been apart. I missed my friend, the only person I could really talk to and laugh with. The other females, the humans that had been with me at the conference were either shallow and not very smart, or extremely smart and rigid. I’d enjoyed the experience and the knowledge I obtained from the seminars, but I’d missed Brayden and our easy friendship like crazy.

“Let’s grab a pizza and get out of here,” I suggested. “I’m dying to see your new place.”

“Why? There’s no extra bedroom for you,” he teased, reaching out and taking the books I’d just purchased from the campus bookstore from my arms.

“Oh please, I have no problem sleeping on the couch,” I said, falling into step beside him as we made our way through the crowd and out of the café. “Or putting you on the couch instead.”

“Hey, you’re the one who likes this college life so much. You wanted to stay in the dorm and blend in with the rest of the students,” Brayden continued, his deep voice filling the night air once we were outside.

“And I’m not complaining. But when I need to get away, it’s good to know I have someplace to go,” I told him.

Brayden stopped walking and turned so that he was now standing in front of me. He lifted a hand, tracing a finger along the line of my jaw. “I am always here for you, Lidia. Always.”

“I know,” I replied, my voice sounding really small after the intensity of his words. I did know that he was there for me, had always been. After this summer I realized just how much I depended on that knowledge. “That’s what big brothers are for,” I finished and pushed past him, heading to where I figured his truck was parked in the student lot.

He’d been standing too close, looking at me too tenderly and I’d felt like I did when we were back in his old apartment that day, right after he’d kissed me. I never wanted to feel like that again. Ever, because that was the one thing that could destroy all that I’d worked for, all that I wanted to be.

I wasn’t going to let that happen.

CHAPTER 2

Brayden

Lidia looked like she was ready to rip Kyra’s eyes out. I never figured that would be such an arousing sight, but damn, I was hard just remembering the scene.

Her eyes had been fierce, deep hazel-brown with the little flecks of green and gold that only appeared when she was becoming agitated and more so when she was full-blown angry. I knew the moment she’d entered the café because the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up, the cat inside stretched languidly, waiting as patiently as it could for its mate. I saw her before she saw me and almost smiled the second she turned and saw the quick and impulsive cuddle I’d given the ever-so-cooperative Kyra.

Maybe I was being cruel and just a little unfair, but there was nothing fair about this world, about the hand we’d been dealt and there was no sense pretending it was. We, Lidia and I, were two of a kind, jaguar shifters from the Topètenia tribe. We were both born in the Gungi rainforest, which was nestled deep in the Amazon rainforest. Our native language was Portuguese, our personalities were volatile to say the least, our job, to live amongst the humans protecting them from the more dangerous of our kind. And while on the outside we may look like any other Hispanic citizens of the United States, we were not like them and never would be. It was the one point in which Lidia and I had chosen to disagree.

Another point was that I was in love with her and ready to claim her as my mate, while she was determined to run as fast as she could in the opposite direction. Waiting her out was proving to be a test of my patience and of my sanity as she’d hugged me so tightly and so close to her body I could think of nothing but sinking deep inside her and staying there until I exploded.

Giving her those three months alone had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done. Far worse than the most strenuous of training, but it had been necessary. For both of us. I believed with every fiber of my being that Lidia and I not only belonged together, but would eventually be together. But she didn’t, and I needed her to feel that sense of loss, to wonder how she would feel if the three months were permanent. Even if I never intended for them to be.

“That’s what big brothers are for,” she’d said while we were walking in the parking lot, just before pushing past me.

I was grateful for the fresh air because being close to her never failed to cause instant heat. But the word “brother” and the way only Lidia could say it was like a bucket of cold water being tossed in my face. I followed behind her as she walked through the parking lot, no doubt looking for my truck. My eyes were glued to the sway of her perfectly rounded ass and I wasn’t about to apologize for it. Lidia had what some might call an athletic body, toned in all the right places, enticingly tight in others. I thought it was perfect because her breasts were just the right size to fit in the palm of my hand—although I’d yet to indulge in that pleasure. Her ass was round enough to fill out her jeans in a mouthwatering fashion and everything else was fit and trim because of all the running she did, in human and occasionally in cat form. She was also a vegetarian, but I tried to forgive her for that misstep.

“I’m parked over here,” I said when she was about to turn left.

I didn’t look at her as I spoke, but towards another line of parked cars to my left. There were five of them, all dark colored, two older models, one convertible, one with visible damage from some type of collision. There were no humans over there, no noises coming from that direction, and still I stared, unable to look away.

“Are you sure?” she asked coming to stand beside me, her nose crinkling as it always did when she frowned.

“It’s my truck, I should know where I parked it. Come on,” I said, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her along beside me. Whatever had drawn me to look at those cars, lost in the much more appealing sight of Lidia Morales.

Even though I was a lot taller than her she’d never failed to keep up her stride when we walked. When she was younger this had been funny, seeing her out of the corner of my eye, stretching her legs until she almost tripped to keep up with me, that familiar ponytail of hers bobbing back and forth with her motions.

After we were seat-belted and heading out of the student parking lot, she asked, “So why’d you decide to ditch the roommates this time?”

I shrugged, making the right turn onto the winding road that led down the hill and away from Faust University. “I need my personal space for when I decide to walk around naked.”

Lidia laughed immediately, a simple yet alluring sound that I hadn’t realized until this second, I’d missed over the past few months. “You do not walk around naked!” she said, still chuckling and looking out the window.

“I do now that I live alone. We can confirm that when we get there,” I told her, 100 percent serious about getting naked when we both arrived at my apartment.

Part of the reason I rented the place was so that when—not if, because I refused to believe that it would not happen—Lidia and I finally made love, I didn’t want anyone overhearing us, or restraining us. Optimistic should have been my middle name.

“You will keep all your clothes on while I’m there,” she replied jokingly. “I’ve seen your ass more times than I need to.”

She had, just as I’d seen some pretty strategic parts of her, but that had been when we were teenagers and not so much once the puberty bug hit us both and we’d made our first shift. From the time she’d turned sixteen and I was seventeen, and we were in the forest or someplace where we could shift and run freely in cat form, Lidia had found a place where she could change out of her clothes without me watching. What she didn’t count on was my excellent imagination, which had given me countless hours of enjoyment.

“Aw, come on, you don’t want to have any fun anymore.” I continued with the joking atmosphere because I figured that would be easier for her.

Lidia, for all that she could be extremely impulsive and was known for her quick temper and even quicker right hook, could clam up as tight as a shell in areas she didn’t want to tread. She and I, on a personal male/female level, was definitely a no-enter zone. At least for now.

“Whatever, seeing you naked is not fun.”

She’d said it. I’d heard it. But I don’t think either of us was really convinced by her words. I kept my head turned away from her so she wouldn’t see my smile.

“You heard from Aidan or Caleb lately?” she asked after she’d been silent for about a full minute—almost a record for Lidia.

I shook my head. “Aidan’s training with Rome, where he should be finally. Got a text from him a couple of days ago saying things were going fine and that my dad was ecstatic that he was there.”

“I cannot believe Rome let him bring that girl with him. Or rather I can’t believe Aidan has a girl he’s serious enough about to cart hundreds of miles around with him.”

“She’s his mate. How could he have left his mate?”

Lidia didn’t reply.

“Rome and all his Faction Leader duties couldn’t compete with that, no matter how angry it made him,” I told her, but the conversation was over.

Probably the moment I mentioned mates, because that was something Lidia neither wanted to discuss with me or to claim for herself. It just simply wasn’t in the plan she’d made for her life. Unfortunately, her excluding it from the plan wasn’t going to stop what was meant to be.

Just like I had no intention of letting her ridiculous misgivings about our relationship stop me from doing everything in my power to get her in my arms. Another man might have taken the three-month hiatus to find another female. To a certain extent, I did, or rather, Kyra had found me. At any rate, Kyra wasn’t and would never be a substitute for Lidia. There was only one woman for me and I’d given her more than enough time to figure that out.

This time around, Lidia would be mine no matter how hard I had to work to convince her.

* * *

“You have a really big bed,” Lidia commented when she was standing at the foot of my “really big bed,” looking down at it like it was some kind of demon.

I chuckled. “It’s a bed for a big guy, with big things.”

“Could you get any more conceited?”

I didn’t answer because she’d walked out of the room. I did, however, remove the sweatshirt I’d been wearing, keeping on my T-shirt despite my “going naked” comment to her.

“So this is the bachelor pad,” she was saying as she walked past the entertainment center with all the equipment I’d purchased. That and the black leather sofa were the only furniture in what would eventually be my living room.

“It’s my place for the time I’m here.”

When she looked up at me, her hand poised over a picture of me and my brothers, I felt like an ass, because she looked like she wanted to cry. Not that Lidia Morales would ever cry, for any reason. Still, she looked really sad and I knew it was because I said I didn’t plan to stay here in Pacifica.

“I know this is our senior year,” she began. “One of the instructors said I had a really good chance of being accepted for that internship at the charter school in L.A.”

She reached up, tucking her hair behind her ears as she talked, looking at me expectantly. I didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to rain on her parade, but there was no way around it. There was a plan for us that was much larger than school or internships.

“That’s great news, Lid. Really good news, but you know we have to leave after graduation,” I said in the most neutral tone possible.

Lidia was shaking her head before I could finish speaking. “No. You know that’s not what I plan to do. I’m not going back for the final training and testing. I’m going to become a teacher.”

We’d been over all this before. I listened while she talked, heard all her hopes and dreams and knew exactly why she’d put so much energy into them. But the fact was they didn’t change anything, at least not to my way of thinking. I wanted to say that to her, to yell it if necessary, whatever it took to get her to understand. But I wouldn’t do those things because I cared about her too much. The last thing I wanted to see was the look of hurt in her eyes, not again, not ever again. “I know, Lidia. You can teach, I’m not saying that you can’t. But we have other responsibilities,” I tried instead.

“I don’t want them. I didn’t ask for them and I don’t need anybody dropping them at my feet,” she protested.

Her hands had fallen to her sides, fingers clenching and unclenching, brow furrowing. She was getting fired up. Her eyes taking on another look entirely. The golden glint sparked as she stared back at me. I loved that look, loved how it never failed to shoot straight to my groin and make the cat inside roar with need. What I didn’t like was that the look was accompanied by her tearing down the tribe and its expectations of us.

“Look,” I said, moving closer and rubbing my hands on her shoulders. “Why don’t we order a pizza, watch some movies, and just chill for tonight. I’ve missed you like crazy.”

It was the truth. I’d thought of her every second of every day she was away. Every other hour I had to convince myself not to get in my truck and drive to L.A. to be with her. She’d needed space. It didn’t matter that I’d needed her to breathe, that each second without her had been like a knife to my chest. Lidia was an intelligent shifter, she was strong, and she was fierce when opposed. I knew we belonged together and I knew I would never stop until I had her. I was also smart enough to know that there would be no happiness until Lidia came to all those conclusions on her own. She sighed, looking up at me the same way she used to when we’d raced to see who could climb a tree the fastest. I always won, knowing she’d be ready to kick my ass if I didn’t give the race my all. She’d always been deflated but determined to try again. That undeniable spunk had been one of the first things I’d noticed and enjoyed about Lidia.

“I missed you too, you big jerk,” she replied, swiping a hand over my chest. “Why didn’t you visit?”

Her hand had been warm and I wished like hell she’d left it on my chest, but she’d pulled it away knowing what her touch did to me, trying desperately to ignore it. That hadn’t worked. I could tell by the way her fingers continued to move as she placed them in her lap, she wanted to touch me again and again. Damn, but I wanted the same thing. I wanted it almost more than air.

“You said you needed space so I gave it to you,” I said simply.

“And you found Kyra in the meantime,” she finished with a nod.

See, another thing I knew about Lidia was that she was passionate about however she felt about a person. If she hated someone, they’d better watch the hell out. If she loved them, it was till the death. And if she was jealous, damn, it was almost as good as if she’d just admitted she loved me. “Yeah,” I replied with an exaggerated sigh and smile. “I found Kyra.”

“Hooray for the lovebirds,” she quipped, walking away and dropping down onto my couch, the TV remote already in her hand. “I like ham and pineapple on my pizza.”

I tried to hide a grin but it was pointless. I liked the jealous Lidia, almost as much as I loved the Shadow Shifter one. “And extra cheese. I know what you like on your pizza, Lidia,” I told her while pulling my cell from my pocket to speed-dial the pizza place.

I knew everything about Lidia, loved everything about her, wanted all of her, needed her in the absolute worst way. My patience was waning, the cat inside threatening to take over this conquest, ready at a moment’s notice to reach out for its mate and hold on tight.

* * *

I was asleep for all of fifteen minutes before Lidia began crawling up my body. We’d started out sitting side by side, then about ten minutes into some crying-in-the-rain chick-flick I was dozing off. She’d slapped me in the chest, threatening to break my ankles if I didn’t watch the entire movie. To prove her point, she’d pulled my leg up onto hers. Of course I didn’t complain. I didn’t stay awake either, but I didn’t complain.

That was the last memory I had before I felt something soft and warm brush past what was steadily becoming a very happy erection. Cracking one eye open I could see the top of her head lying on my chest, one hand wearing the plain sterling silver band on her thumb—actually I felt that since a circle of warmth was now pooling there.

As for my erection, it was her knee that was now inching even farther up between my legs. I swallowed first, counting to five in my head before attempting my next move. I could just sit up and wake her, give her a ride back to her dorm, and come back home like the good “big brother” she liked to think I was. Or I could …

I brushed my hand over her hair. It smelled heavenly, like fresh berries and flowers and it always looked so silky as it hung past her shoulders. My hand moved down her back, feeling the steady rise and fall as she breathed. As softly as I could and with as much control as I’d been taught, I cupped the ass I loved staring at. One cheek rested in my palm and my dick pressed painfully against the zipper of my jeans, my teeth clenching. Inhaling deeply, her scent seeped into my nostrils causing my blood to pump fiercely.

She moved, rolling slightly so that now she was actually on top of me, her breasts on my chest, her crotch aligned perfectly with my dick. I couldn’t do anything but palm both my hands on her ass.

“Brayden.” She whispered my name, looking up at me with sleep-hazed eyes, lips slightly parted and damn kissable.

So I did the only thing I could, I lifted slightly until our faces were close and my lips could finally touch hers. The kiss was hot and brutal because that’s how I felt right now. I wanted her more than I wanted my next breath. My dick wanted out of these stupid fuckin’ jeans and inside her hot little pussy, as soon as absolutely possible.

“Stop, Brayden. Dammit, stop!” she said in a louder, much more coherent voice than a half-asleep person should have.

In the next instant she was pushing up off of me and I was left lying there with a hard-on and what was probably a dumb-assed look on my face.

“I have a boyfriend, Brayden,” she said, pulling her shirt down and straightening her hair. “And you have Kyra.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked trying to sift through the haze of arousal and the sudden pang of irritation. “I don’t have Kyra, we were just hanging out.”

That didn’t sound too believable and frustration was eating at me like a disease. Frowning, it was my turn to rub a hand down the back of my head. “I mean, I don’t want Kyra and you damn well know that!”

“You wanted her all summer when you were making a point to stay away from me,” she tossed back, her fists clenching at her sides.

Dammit, now she sounded angry that I hadn’t come to see her or called, or whatever. I thought she’d wanted the space so I’d given it to her. Now, I had no goddamned idea what she wanted.

“Look, this is ridiculous. We belong together, Lidia. We’ve been together for as long as either of us can remember. You with someone else, me with someone else, it just doesn’t fit. It’s not the way it was meant to be.”

“Stop talking to me like I’m part of some grand plan made by some higher entity that has no freakin’ idea what it’s like to be me.” She opened her mouth to say something else, then stopped, swiping both hands down her face while taking a deep breath. “You and I are best friends. That. Is. All.”

“You don’t believe that any more than I do and I’m tired of playing along with your little fantasy.”

“I have a boyfriend, Brayden.”

“You have me,” I said through clenched teeth, my shoulders tingling with the need to shift, to stand on my hind legs and roar with the pain searing through me at her words. “You will always have me.”

She didn’t reply; instead she watched me with eyes that had begun to fill with tears. I ached with the pain so clearly etched on her face, its stench reaching up to strangle me it was so intense. This was what I didn’t want, what I couldn’t handle seeing. She shook her head and backed away, heading towards the door. I wanted to grab her, to hold her close and refuse to let her go, but I didn’t. I couldn’t cause her more pain, I’d never forgive myself if I did, and she was gone before I could second guess my actions. Just like the last time.

CHAPTER 3

Lidia

I’m an idiot.

A horny, brain-damaged, and sleep-deprived idiot and I was going be late for my first day in Computer Concepts for Teachers if I didn’t move a lot faster. I’d overslept, which, before this summer, had been unlike me. This time when the nightmare had awakened me and I’d instinctively reached for my cell phone to call Brayden, I’d immediately recalled kiss #2 that was even hotter than kiss #1, which even though it happened three months ago was still wreaking havoc in my mind. Why did he keep kissing me? And why did those kisses keep getting better?

Because I was cursed. That’s the only viable excuse I could come up with. My uncle had escaped our tribe to become the second in command to one of the most notorious Shadow Shifters gone rogue and just about everyone in our village thought anyone related to him would eventually turn out the same way. The rumors had driven my parents apart, until eventually my mother had hanged herself from the tree near the waterfall where she taught me how to swim. My father, shamed by his choice of mate, took off to where nobody knew—both of them leaving me, a ten-year-old, to fend for myself. The entire village would have probably voted to cast me out as well if it had not been for the Sanchezes offering to take me in, carting me along as they traveled the globe as shifter ambassadors.

How could I repay them by being attracted to their son?

“Late for class?”

I heard his voice first, then smelled his cologne, and then I looked up into the ice-blue eyes of Daniel Mulligan, who since our first meeting last semester, always seemed to pop up wherever I was.

“Almost,” I replied, snapping out of my “what do I do now?” trance. The answer to that question was simple: avoid being alone with Brayden as much as possible, or at least until this thing between us passed, as I was sure it would. Regardless of what he’d said, he had a girlfriend now. I’d seen them together and they definitely looked like they were doing more than just hanging out. To top that off, I, rather impulsively, had lied and told him I had a boyfriend. Knowing we were both off-limits should do the trick. I hoped.

“Where are you headed?” I asked Daniel, who was now walking beside me, heading toward the technology building on campus. Daniel was a good-looking guy, with his tousled dark brown hair and dimpled chin.

“Professor Howard has a class in thirty minutes. I’m going over early to open the room and get the PowerPoint set up,” he replied.

That’s how Daniel and I had met, while I was taking Professor Howard’s psychology course. Daniel was the professor’s assistant and eye candy for the female students, which went a long way to staying awake since Professor Howard’s class consisted of 98 percent lecture time. If I hadn’t needed the credits I would have definitely skipped his class entirely. Now, this morning, however, I was glad I hadn’t.

“More lectures from Professor Howard,” I said with a smirk.

Daniel nudged me playfully. “Come on, you know you’re gonna miss it.”

“Absolutely not,” was my quick and cheerful retort. “This computer course will probably be boring enough.”

“Yeah, but that’s how you do it, take all your essential courses early and save the mundane stuff for last.”

I nodded. “You’re right and that’s what I did for the most part. I have a foreign language methodology class this semester, but it’s the most important one I need for my major. The rest are things like astrology and computers for dummies. I should coast through the next two semesters until graduation, right?”

Daniel chuckled. “You sure should. That was smart thinking on your part.”

Actually, it had been half smart thinking and half preparation. I was supposed to head to the East Coast after graduation to begin my final training and testing to become a shifter guard. That’s what Brayden wanted me to do. But I’d had other ideas and had begun implementing them in the last year. Some of these plans I’d shared with Brayden even though I knew he disagreed. As much as I cared about Brayden and his family, I couldn’t be who they wanted me to be, no matter what my bloodline predicated, or rather in spite of.

“What are you doing when you receive your master’s next year?” I asked him as we entered the technology building.

I could question why he was walking this way since the building where Professor Howard’s lecture hall was located required him to take a right and continue down another pathway, but I didn’t. My mind was full enough of questions and answers that didn’t quite seem to fit, and I didn’t need to add to the issue.

“Not sure yet,” Daniel said after holding the second of the clear glass entrance doors open for me to walk through.

The act, while very chivalrous of him, seemed a little odd because instead of opening the door then standing to the side while I walked inside, he would open the door, hold his arm high up to keep it open then nod for me to walk under his arm. He wasn’t that much taller than me, so each time I ducked a bit, my right side with my purse brushing against him.

I mumbled thanks just as he was replying, “My dad wants me to come work at his PR firm in L.A. He keeps reminding me that’s always been the plan.”

His words stopped me from walking. “Omigod, really? You have a premade plan too?” I know it probably sounded stupid but I couldn’t believe he had people trying to dictate his life the same way I did.

Daniel nodded, running his fingers through his low-cut, chestnut-colored hair. “Yeah, it’s a real pain in the ass. I mean, I’ve been in school for almost six years now. Hiding out mostly because I’m not even sure what I’ll do with a master’s in psychology.”

“You could get licensed and open your own clinic, treat patients, and live your own life,” I suggested, all hyped up because I already knew what my plan was, the one I’d made up for myself, I mean.

“They can’t make you live their lives, or a life you don’t want for yourself. It’s just ridiculous,” I was saying when his lips curled into a smile. A really nice, really cute smile. “What’s so funny?”

“You,” he said, stepping closer to me.

The hallway was almost empty as most students with nine o’clock classes were already in class since I was certain it was a few minutes past nine now. But I wasn’t paying much attention to our surroundings, just kept looking up at Daniel, almost as if I’d never seen him before.

Daniel lifted a hand, pushed hair behind my ear, and spoke. “You look really good when you get riled up. I mean, you look good all the time,” he said, then stopped to clear his throat. “I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me tonight, Lidia.”

The invite was a surprise only because I hadn’t seen him in months. When we first met I’d thought there might be something, that he might be interested, but then the semester was over and Brayden had kissed me and …

“Yes,” I replied probably too enthusiastically, but whatever. “I’d love to have dinner with you.”

Daniel’s smile spread and I felt, um, I felt, a little something, I think. Not that wild flash of hot I felt with someone else, but still it was a start.

“You’d better get to class. I’ll pick you up at your dorm at six,” he said, letting his fingers slide along the line of my jaw.

I smiled back because the gesture was so achingly sweet I figured it was the right thing to do. “I’ll be waiting.”

When I finally walked into class, it was with a lighter step, a brighter outlook, and only a touch of guilt snaking along my shoulder blades. No, wait, that wasn’t guilt, it was a warning, again. I should pay attention this time, search the room for any threats, focus on the feeling to see where it would lead. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to be a shifter, didn’t want to embrace that world wholeheartedly because it wouldn’t end well. I knew that for a fact.

* * *

I didn’t wait long. At five minutes to six Cora Andrews, one of my assigned roommates, ran into the room, her flame-colored hair flowing behind her. “You have a date with Daniel Mulligan? He’s so hot and he never dates students! I can’t believe you, of all people, have a date with him,” she finished, dropping down onto her bed with a look of sheer grief on her face.

My bed was a bottom bunk and I’d just stood after lacing my ankle-high boots. “Yes, I have a date with Daniel Mulligan,” I replied tightly. “Even though I’m just a student.”

Cora was overexcited, underachieving, and immature, spending her parents’ money like it was her right, instead of a privilege. She talked too much—way more than I did—and about absolutely nothing. She whined and complained more than she went to class or studied and she gave me a headache just about every day I had to sit in this room with her. So to say I didn’t appreciate her comments may have been an understatement.

“I just never figured you for Daniel’s type. Or any guy’s type for that matter,” Cora continued, her pert little face drawn in a frown.

“There’s nothing feminine about you, from that sloppy ponytail you’re too lazy to change to the jeans and T-shirts that fill your wardrobe. Hell, you’re not even wearing makeup.” She finished with a huff.

I heard her talking, only taking in bits and pieces as I’d already learned to do with Cora. Looking down I noted the jeans she’d referenced and my hair was in a ponytail but this was a date, not the senior prom, so little miss priss could kiss my …

“And you wear too much makeup,” was my eventual retort. Then, with an exasperated sigh, “I assume Daniel is on his way up and that’s how you know I’m going out with him.”

When she didn’t immediately reply, I turned to look at her while lifting my jacket from the coatrack by the door. She looked up at me and rolled her eyes.

“Yes, he’s coming. He asked what room you were in and I asked why. I should have lied,” she snapped.

At least she was an honest pain in the ass, I thought before shaking my head and muttering, “Thanks.”

I opened the door before Daniel could knock. He looked shocked. I wasn’t. I’d scented his arrival along with the heavy herb aroma of jealousy pouring from Cora’s direction. Despising the shifter traits and how lately they’d seemed to hit me full force, I pressed my hand against his chest to push him back slightly. “Don’t ask,” I told him, closing the door behind me.

He chuckled. “Okay.”

* * *

Dinner at the Olive Garden had never been so sweet. As many times as I’d been to the place since it was one of the closest restaurants to the school—outside of the pizza/sub shop, Starbucks, and O’Shea’s Bar & Grille—I’d never had such a wonderful time. Daniel was so easy to talk to, we didn’t argue at all. Except over the last breadstick, which ended with him breaking it in half and putting a piece up to my lips for me to bite.

“Would you like to stop for a drink?” he asked when we’d ridden a little way in silence.

I’d been looking out the window thinking of how different dinner with Daniel was from any time spent with Brayden and chastising myself for doing so. “Ah, sure, that sounds fine,” I answered halfheartedly.

For some reason I’d wanted to get back to the dorm as quickly as possible. I had homework but I didn’t think I was anxious to get it completed. No, there was something else, a feeling simmering just beneath the surface of my skin. It felt weird, like it didn’t actually belong but was taking place anyway. This had been happening much too frequently. I didn’t like it at all but knew there was no way to stop it. Shadow Shifters had heightened senses as part of their normal genetic make-up. They needed them to hunt, to fight, to stay alive in the depths of the rainforest where they’d been born.

I talk about them as if I do not belong to their culture, because I don’t. I won’t, not ever again.

I’d barely noticed the car had been parked before Daniel was pulling the door open for me. Unclasping the seat belt, I stepped out into the crisp night air and sucked in a quick breath. If I didn’t want to be a shifter, the only other choice I had was to be a human. A human on a first date with a really nice guy.

“Are you alright?” Daniel asked, quickly coming to me and grasping me by the elbow.

I yanked my arm away instantly as his touch had been painful, or almost, kind of. It just hadn’t felt right and so I reacted. Daniel frowned.

“I’m sorry. Yes, I’m okay, just a little jumpy for some reason.” Praying that would be enough to stop him from looking at me like I’d just grown another head, I stepped closer, touching a hand lightly to his. “Let’s have that drink.”

He seemed to soften, his quizzical look changing slowly as he closed the door, then took my hand, walking us into O’Shea’s.

The atmosphere here was drastically different from the Olive Garden, with its jukebox music and loud conversations. “Maybe I can find us a booth,” Daniel said.

“No. The bar is fine and it’s probably quicker,” was my reply because I didn’t feel like being boxed in. I felt like stretching, like being free.

Shaking my head of those thoughts I reached for Daniel’s hand. “Here, let’s sit over here.”

He followed and we snagged two seats at the very end of the bar. I smiled at him as we settled onto the stools, trying like hell to focus on him and not the strange vibe I was getting from this place.

“I’ll have a beer,” Daniel ordered when the bartender came over.

“Cranberry and vodka,” I added to the order.

Daniel laughed and looked at me when the bartender left us alone. “Wow.”

“What?” I asked, after looking over my shoulder to see who was behind me. I felt someone there, someone watching me, I thought.

Daniel shook his head. “Just never knew a girl that drank vodka before.”

“It’s not a big deal.” I shrugged. Brayden had introduced me to vodka. Or rather, I’d forced him to let me drink the same thing he and his brothers were drinking one night when we were in Costa Rica. We’d stayed at a resort until the transportation had arrived to take us deep into the Talamancan forests where more of the tribes lived. After their parents had gone to sleep the brothers had crept out of the suite we all shared. I knew they would and had followed them right down to the resort bar where Aidan, since he was the oldest, had paid some desk clerk who was over twenty-one to buy them two bottles of vodka. I followed them out to the pool and threatened to go upstairs and tell if they didn’t give me a drink. Caleb, with his sullen and generally gruff personality, had still refused. Aidan tried to unravel me with reproach. But it was Brayden, the middle brother, who knew I was dead serious and that I’d definitely tell if they didn’t give me what I wanted. He’d held that bottle to my lips and gave me the shortest sip I’d ever experienced. Then I’d grabbed the bottle from his hands and took a gulp that almost knocked me right on my ass.

I was smiling with the memory before I could stop myself.

“Wherever your mind just wandered off to, I can see it makes you very happy,” Daniel was saying.

“Oh, it was nothing. Just thinking about my first taste of vodka.”

His brow furrowed with that remark and I instantly followed it up with, “I like it so much better with cranberry juice,” I told him, and that wasn’t a total lie. I liked drinking cranberry juice by itself as well.

“That she definitely does,” came the familiar voice from behind me. “Maybe you should have ordered plain cranberry juice instead.”

I spun around on that bar stool so fast I would have fallen right off if Daniel hadn’t reached out, grabbing my arm first. Amidst the conversations and the music and the instantaneous roaring of my heart, there was a growl. Low, deep, and deadly. Did I forget, familiar?

“Hi, Kyra,” was the first thing to come out of my mouth as the female was just about glued to Brayden’s hip.

“You must be the boyfriend,” Brayden continued, extending his hand to Daniel.

“Ah, yeah, I mean, ah, I’m Daniel,” he stuttered over the greeting and I felt like an ass for lying about having a boyfriend and for getting caught in that lie, because there was no doubt Brayden had known I was lying. He always knew.

“We just came from dinner and we’re having a drink,” I volunteered even though Brayden didn’t need any explanation from me. “How about you two? What are you doing here?”

I guess he didn’t owe me an explanation either, but hell, I was asking anyway.

Kyra blinked like she was bored. “We were just leaving, right, babe?” she asked Brayden.

Her hand, with long, red-painted nails, moved up and down his arm as she spoke, like the contact was needed for him to digest her words. I huffed because I was being pretty bitchy about this situation, when I shouldn’t care at all.

“You’re out drinking on a school night?” Brayden asked, his dark gaze pinning me.

I felt like I couldn’t move, like altering from this position would set things into motion that I wouldn’t be able to control. It was weird having Brayden standing so close to me, while my date was even closer. There seemed to be this invisible tug-of-war going on and I didn’t like the feeling of being jerked in both directions. It was the story of my life and I was beyond tired of it.

“I’m having one drink, with my date. And you’re about to leave with your date,” I said tightly, looking directly at Brayden so he’d know I wasn’t really feeling this confrontation he’d started.

“I worry about you,” was Brayden’s next remark. One that totally threw me off guard. Not because of the words, because he’d said that to me before and I worried about him too. But the way he was looking at me and the way Daniel’s hand tightened on my arm, and the quicker-than-light flash I saw in Brayden’s eyes was like a volcano waiting to erupt.

“There’s no need to worry,” I told him just before there was a shift in the atmosphere.

I think Brayden noticed it too because his shoulders visibly tensed, his gaze traveling to the entrance.

“It’s nothing,” I told him, trying like hell to convince myself of that fact as well. But deep down I knew I was wrong. There was something here, had been for a few weeks. If I felt it, I was positive Brayden did too.

His gaze was hot, his brows furrowed as he turned back to face me. “It’s here,” he said, barely moving his lips, his tone so low I know I was the only one to hear him.

I shook my head quickly, adamantly. “No. Not now. Not here.”

“Lidia.” He said my name, reaching for my arm at the same time.

“Baby, let’s get us a table over there,” Kyra interrupted, her hand rubbing along Brayden’s chest.

The chest that looked as if he’d been working out more and buying smaller, tighter T-shirts to show off that fact. She saw me looking at Brayden’s chest and she smiled in triumph. I wanted to slap her but that would seal the whole jealousy thing as tightly as a Ziploc bag. But that would be wrong, I wasn’t jealous of Kyra, not at all. I was suspicious.

“You and your date can join us,” Brayden said, looking around the bar once more—not seeming to really notice Kyra was there and touching him at all.

“No.” I shook my head quickly.

It was past time for us to go, for me to get away from here and all these eerie feelings stalking me. I slipped off the bar stool, reaching for my purse and turning to Daniel. “I changed my mind. I don’t want a drink. Can we go?”

Brayden frowned. Kyra pouted. And Daniel looked confused. My head was spinning even though I hadn’t gotten my drink. I felt like I was on a roller coaster, one where Brayden was in charge of the speed, the ups and downs, and the plummeting in the pit of my stomach. I needed to get away from here and from whatever was causing this unsettled feeling at the base of my spine.

“Yeah, I’d like to sit down, Bray,” I heard Kyra say from behind.

Brayden looked like he wanted to shake her off his arm, but he didn’t. He stood there staring expectantly at me, his eyes widening as if he were trying to tell me something, trying to warn me of something. I had nothing to offer him so I looked to Daniel.

“I mean, I really have a lot of homework to do so it probably isn’t smart to have a drink now and then go home and try to do some work. You understand, right?”

Daniel nodded, but I knew the end half of this date wasn’t working out as well as the beginning. “Yeah, sure.”

I gave him my brightest smile and waved over my shoulder without looking back at Brayden or his arm candy.

“So that was your ex?” Daniel asked when we’d pulled up in front of my dorm.

“What? Oh, no, Brayden’s not my ex. He’s a friend. A really close family friend that tends to act a little overprotective at times. I’m sorry he interrupted,” I said, all the while unbuckling my seat belt and reaching for the door latch so I could get out of the car.

My body was in overdrive, heat soaring throughout my limbs, the feeling of something rolling around beneath my skin, and the scents, they were conflicting and annoying and I really needed to be by myself so I could get it together. Everything had intensified the moment we entered O’Shea’s. Alarm had attempted to penetrate and when Brayden appeared a totally different bout of confusion had erupted.

“Because he seemed like he was kind of mad that we were together, in the bar, and that I was buying you a drink,” Daniel said slowly, like he wanted to make sure I was hearing him.

If he only knew there was nothing wrong with my hearing, or smelling, or sight, or any of my senses. In fact, they were all ranked above average, courtesy of my shifter DNA. That and the heightened sex drive that I swear was starting to beat me over the head like a jackhammer.

“Well, I just don’t want to encroach on someone else’s territory,” he was saying.

His voice was going in and out because there were so many other things running through my mind, like the fact that despite all the other scents in the whole goddamned world, I couldn’t get Brayden’s out of my head. It was a basic scent, if you came from the Gungi like we did. Earthy and manly, fresh and damned enticing.

I jumped when Daniel touched the back of my neck.

“Relax,” he said, leaning over the console, bringing his face closer to mine by way of guiding my neck.

I went with it because this was the end of our date and the Olive Garden had been sweet and nice. I inhaled deeply knowing the infamous good-night kiss was coming and decided it might not be such a bad idea. Maybe if Daniel kissed me the other two kisses I’d had recently would be washed from my memory.

“Right, I’ll just relax,” I whispered against his lips.

My eyes closed because I think I may have threatened them and my lips parted because Daniel’s were parted when they touched them. So the first kiss was moist but a little off, as I didn’t feel any stir of emotion. Daniel held my neck a little tighter and came closer once more. This time his tongue was out for greeting, barging in without an invite. I accepted and waited. I didn’t gag like I wanted and I didn’t push him away because I needed this to get better. I really, really needed kissing Daniel of the nice Olive Garden date, to get better. Please.

It didn’t.

The scent, however, intensified, to the extent I would have sworn that Brayden was in this car with us. He wasn’t, thank God, but still. So I did push Daniel away this time. I shook my head and was about to say something but thought my actions might speak a bit louder. I was out of the car in the next five seconds, running up the front steps of the dorm like a scared kid. Once inside and the security door closed behind me, the cursing began.

I wasn’t a scared kid. I wasn’t a coward. And I damn sure wasn’t a prude. I’d had sex and been kissed before so going on a date and doing the good-night-kiss thing was not new to me. And it shouldn’t have been awkward with a guy I’d met months ago. But it was and I was so pissed I pushed past whoever the girls were standing near the elevators but not stepping inside when the door opened.

I went into my room yanking my jacket off, tossing it on the floor somewhere in the vicinity of the coatrack. Then I plopped onto my bed, stomach first, and when Cora sat up and looked like she was going to say something, I flipped her the finger and dared her to speak one freakin’ word!

CHAPTER 4

Brayden

Kyra straddled me in the truck. The steering wheel was most likely biting into her ass, but she didn’t seem to mind as she pressed her crotch closer to my totally uninterested dick.

“God, I wanted you all night,” she was saying, her hands rubbing down the back of my head then going to her blouse. “Didn’t you want me?”

So, I’m a guy, I breathe in and out, I get up every morning to a hard-on that I have to wish away so I can take a piss. I’m also a Shadow Shifter, which basically means all these male human hormones are magnified by maybe a trillion. All this adds up to me being ready to fuck at the drop of a dime.

Normally.

Tonight, even though Kyra was wearing the shortest skirt ever and no panties and was at this very moment unbuttoning her blouse, showing me her melon-sized tits that all but fell out of her bra, I was barely getting aroused. I mean, I saw what was before me, scented the smell of aroused female, and now that she’d flipped down the front of her bra, saw the blushing pink nipples of her breasts, all receiving a lukewarm reception on my part.

“Yeah, I wanted you too,” I said although the words didn’t actually ring true. The reality was Lidia didn’t want me in her life, at least not in that way. At least not tonight.

She was content with us being friends but nothing more. She wanted a life in the human world while I had my feet firmly planted in the shifter world. Could I have gotten it wrong all along? Could my habit of knowing everything, as my brothers always accused, have been out of context all along? I didn’t believe so and yet, look where I was and who I was with.

“Then kiss me, babe. Kiss me and touch me and make me feel good,” Kyra continued.

Yeah, that’s what I needed to do. I needed to touch, to feel, to forget, and so I did. I cupped her breasts, letting the soft feel of flesh send false signs of contentment to my mind. I leaned forward and kissed her, mainly to keep her from talking again because I was tired of her high-pitched voice. Her tongue did the dance with mine and I tried like hell to keep my eyes closed but they wouldn’t listen to reason.

I opened them to see Kyra’s face, her eyes closed, head moving with the sounds she made as the kiss continued.

“Come on, Bray, I can’t wait. I need you inside me now,” she insisted, taking her mouth away from mine. “I need to finish this.”

I moved a hand down the flat skin of her stomach and farther until it was under her skirt, feeling the moistness of her pussy. She was so ready and hey, what do you know, my guy had decided to at least wake up. So the kiss deepened and one of her hands slipped between us to unzip my pants. This was going to happen. I was going to fuck her right here in the parking lot of O’Shea’s Bar & Grille and dammit I was going to enjoy it. I had to or risk losing my mind over the female I really wanted. So yes, I was doing this, right here and right fucking now, I was doing this with Kyra.

Then I made a mistake.

I inhaled deeply as my tongue scraped along the line of her jaw and dammit, just like that, it was done. I jerked back like Kyra had slapped me instead of running her fingers over the tip of my now freed cock.

“You like that, huh?” she asked playfully. “Well, let me show you what else I can do,” she continued, pulling on my erection, trying to get it into her hot little core as fast as she could. “Let me show you why they sent me.”

My teeth clenched as my hands fastened on her waist. In the next instant I’d lifted her off my lap and set her on the passenger seat. Stunned silence filled the cab of the truck just before the undeniable click of the locks disengaging.

“Not tonight,” I told her without even looking her way, without giving a second thought to the things she’d said.

“What? Are you fucking kidding me? What does that mean, not tonight?”

Her already high-pitched voice elevated another octave, scraping against my temples until I wanted to scream. Instead I adjusted my pants and started the ignition. “Get a ride with one of your friends in the bar. I’m going home.”

“You bastard!” she yelled.

I saw her open-palmed hand coming from my peripheral and caught her wrist just before it made contact with my cheek. “Get. Out. Of. My. Truck. Now!”

Thrusting her arm away from me, I took another initiative and leaned over to open the door for her. “Now!” I reiterated.

“You’re one stupid-ass outsider,” she said on her way out. “I knew I shouldn’t have fucked with you in the first place.”

Such lovely language coming from what was basically a pretty attractive mouth. I could only shake my head. “Yeah, well, that feeling is pretty mutual right about now.”

She was gone seconds later and I pulled out of the parking lot so fast I might have left half the tread from my tires back there. I drove until I ended up outside of Lidia’s dorm. Sitting in my truck I looked up to her window like some love-struck idiot. Slamming my palms on the steering wheel I cursed her and the fucking companheiro calor that I knew was taking over me. I wanted her beyond all reason. I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted to be a Shadow Shifter, and that was more than life itself.

I was so screwed.

I wanted to get out of my truck and go knock on her door. She’d talk to me when we were alone. I’d tell her I loved her and she’d have no choice but to listen to me, to hear me, to believe me.

With a hand on the door handle I was determined to get things on track with me and Lidia before the night was over. Then I saw them. No, I scented them, just as I had back at the bar. Several cars behind me, parked with the headlights turned off, was a black sedan. Inside of it, I couldn’t see anyone, but I knew they were there. Rogues.

The way I was feeling right now, all the tension swirling around inside of me made the cat inside edgy and ready for a fight. If I got out and ran down the street, there would be one, no doubt. But there might also be exposure, danger to humans and/or to Lidia. So I slowly pulled my hand away from the handle, moving it instead to the keys that were still in the ignition. I started my truck and pulled off into the night, watching as they followed me all the way to my apartment building, then sped off once I stepped out of my truck.

Cowards, I thought as I watched their car disappear around a corner. Dirty, disgusting cowards. Then, as I walked up the steps I thought maybe, just maybe, I was like them. A coward when it came to Lidia and to making her mine.

* * *

“He’s screwing one of the math interns,” I told Lidia the moment she stepped out of her dorm room three days later.

I’d been standing here for almost forty-five minutes but I knew she had a three-thirty class and would have to come out sooner or later. I also knew that knocking on her door and entering the room with two other females to tell her this about the guy she’d been trotting around campus with for the past few days, probably wasn’t going to go over well.

From the frown she was giving me as she adjusted the books in her hand, telling her this way might not have been the best idea either.

“Hello to you too,” she quipped and kept walking.

I followed. “Hello and I’m serious, Lid. I saw them yesterday. He didn’t even have the decency to take her back to his place, just pushed her against the wall in that professor’s office and did her right there.” I’d stepped to the side of the door after first sighting the bastard with the admittedly hot intern. The escapade hadn’t lasted long so I was there when he came out of the room waiting—similarly to what I’d just done with Lidia. What happened next was between dumbass Daniel and me.

“We’re not engaged,” she said, not looking at me and turning sideways to walk between two students coming from the opposite direction.

A few steps later her palm smashed into the elevator button and we stood in the narrow hallway waiting. From a distance somebody was playing Katy Perry’s “Roar” and singing loudly along with it. Two girls ran right past us, lacrosse gear in hand, probably late for practice. And somewhere on this floor someone was smoking marijuana trying to mask the scent with candles. I might have thought that was amusing if I wasn’t more concerned with the female I’d just pissed off.

“Okay, you’re not engaged but you’re telling me that you gave your boyfriend permission to screw another female while you studied in some foreign language class? What’s he going to do while you sit in astrology this afternoon, hit on your roommate maybe?”

She turned to me then, her eyes filled with the anger I’d expected her to show a little sooner. “I’m going to be minding my business while I’m in astrology so I have no idea. Maybe you should take a class instead of going around stalking people.”

I turned so that we were now face-to-face and stuffed my hands into my pockets to keep from touching her. Her face was free and clear of any makeup, except for a light, peach-colored gloss on her lips, just the way I liked it. Her hair was pulled back but had that glossy sheen that had made me want to run my fingers through the thick mass on more than one occasion. Her shorts were denim and damned short, her chest luckily completely covered in a loose-fitting T-shirt that almost touched the hem of the too-short shorts. She looked fresh and pure and sexy as hell all at once and I wanted to get my hands on her as badly as I wanted to get out of this damned college dorm.

“I’m not stalking you,” I replied. “Just trying to protect my little sister. Isn’t that what a big brother is supposed to do?” I finished with a look that I’m sure matched the sarcastic edge of my question.

She glared up at me, then over to the elevator that seemed to ignore the switch that beckoned its service. “I’m not your sister,” she spat, pushing past me.

I almost smiled because what I’d told her about Daniel had upset her. That didn’t sound right, but it was true. I was happy that she was mad at Daniel for screwing the math intern because that meant she would break things off with the idiot and there would be no “boyfriend” excuse the next time I kissed her.

Following her down the hall was a bit of a task because it seemed as if half the tenants of this building were now on this floor and heading to the elevator, even though it probably still wouldn’t come. Up ahead I could see Lidia pushing through the door leading to the stairs. I hurriedly went in the same direction.

“I’m glad to hear that fact,” I said, grabbing her arm to stop her before she took the next set of stairs.

If she had a free hand Lidia would have definitely taken a swing at me. Since that would require her dropping the textbooks and spiral notebook she held, she settled for a seething glare.

“You’ve said what you have to say, Brayden. Thank you so much for the information, but I have to get to class now.”

“Are you mad that your boyfriend was cheating or that you didn’t want him in the first place?” I asked her.

“You are so full of yourself, Brayden Sanchez,” was her reply. “Just because I’m not willing to jump into bed with you doesn’t mean I can’t or won’t with someone else. And Daniel is, or rather I thought he was, just as good a guy to be with as any.”

“But you didn’t want to be with him, did you?”

She jerked free of my grasp. “It’s none of your business who I want to be with, Brayden. You don’t see me asking you questions about Kyra.”

I shrugged. “Ask away. Or better yet, I’ll give you all the gory details. She approached me one day outside of Starbucks, I ignored her. I saw her again at O’Shea’s and she was a little more convincing. We had a couple of dates, a few kisses, and lots of free feels, but NO sex. And now it’s done.”

“What do you mean it’s done?” she asked cautiously, but still very much interested.

“I mean, I broke it off with her that night I saw you at O’Shea’s. Do you want to know why?”

“No,” she answered quickly, shaking her head.

Then she took a step as if she were going to go down the next flight of stairs. I walked until I was right behind her, wrapping my hand around her waist and pulling her against my front to keep her still.

“I said I don’t want to know, Brayden. What you do and who you do it with are not my business.”

“But you are my business, Lidia. You and this heat that continues to spread whenever we’re close like this. You know what this means. You know that I want you,” I told her.

She shook her head, but I continued, “And you want me. No matter what you say or do, I know it’s true.”

“I do not want you,” she insisted, her voice hitching just a bit.

“Liar,” I accused her, holding her tight, loving the feel of our bodies so close. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for this female, no limits to how much I would grovel and plead and wait. The cat inside, on the other hand, had reached its limit as evidenced by the quick and low growl that escaped.

Lidia shivered at the sound, the cat inside her most likely ready to answer in kind to the heat. “Bully,” she yelled, pulling from me and running down the steps until she got to the bottom. “You can’t make me feel what you feel, Brayden. Even if Daniel is an ass, there’s no future for you and me outside of a friendship. We have different goals and will eventually go in different directions. It’s just not a smart move,” she finished, huffing out a breath. “I’m sorry.”

In the next instant she was down the steps, running away from me once more. I started to yell down at her that this thing between us wasn’t a “smart” move, it was the only move, the only future for us, for shifter mates.

Instead, I exercised all the restraint I’d been taught, held the cat at bay with all the strength I possessed, and continued down the steps slowly until I was eventually outside of the dorm house and walking across the street to my truck. I didn’t look for Lidia because I knew exactly where I could find her. I knew her entire schedule, just as I knew she’d been angry with herself for running away. Lidia hated the idea of being a coward almost as much as I hated her persistent thoughts of us not continuing our lives together. Unfortunately, none of that changed a damned thing, that’s what I wanted to make her understand.

CHAPTER 5

Lidia

My mind was definitely not on the stars while I sat in the back row of astrology class. It wasn’t even really on the alleged betrayal of my wannabe boyfriend. It was where it always seemed to be lately, on Brayden.

I hated that I’d known he was on the other side of the door before I’d even opened it today. I’d known when Daniel was at the door as well, but the sensations were drastically different. Whereas Daniel’s scent was fresh, human, aroused, Brayden’s was dangerous, a sweet, sultry scent that seemed to speak to me on another level entirely. I knew that level and I freakin’ despised it!

The growl that rumbled in my chest as I looked up to see his thick eyebrows and inky-black hair in need of a trim was another unwelcome trait. I’d heard him talking but what he said hadn’t mattered because I simply didn’t want him to be there. I mean, yes, for years Brayden had been one of the first people I saw in the morning but that was when we were staying in the same house or hotel or cabin. Now that we lived in separate dwellings about twenty minutes away from each other, I didn’t like the fact that I could look up at any time and see him standing there.

And yet when we were separated this summer, I hadn’t liked that either.

Talk about never being satisfied.

I wanted to scream with this indecision that plagued me like a deadly disease. One minute I thought I knew the answer, was certain of what I wanted and how I wanted to get there. I had an absolute mentality when it came to the tribe I was born into and the cruel hand it had ultimately dealt me. And then Brayden looked at me. He smiled. He laughed. He simply stood there knowing things that nobody should know until I chose to tell them. And my decisions faltered like a house of cards.

I hated him for that.

Not necessarily for telling me about Daniel, because after our three dates I knew there was never going to be anything serious between us. Hell, I hadn’t even been up to allowing him to attempt another kiss. For his part, Daniel hadn’t seemed too upset over it, just sort of went with the flow. The reason for that casual attitude was clear now that I knew he was getting it from someone else.

I inhaled a deep breath, let it out with a heavy sigh, and then wanted to jump for joy when class was finally over. If I’d known who was waiting outside of the door, I may have withheld that joy. I was having such bad luck with doors today.

It was obvious he hadn’t come to see me. In fact, he was walking so fast, looking down at the floor, I got the impression he wasn’t looking for anyone and didn’t want anyone looking for him. Too bad, I figured it was as good a time as any to get this over with.

“Daniel!” I called out to him but he kept walking.

I walked faster, watching as he hurried to turn a corner. I had to jog a little to get around that corner before losing sight of him completely and when I caught up with him, I didn’t bother calling his name, but grabbed the sleeve of his shirt instead.

“Hey,” I said when he turned to face me.

Then I gasped, which I didn’t do often because being born a shape shifter, there wasn’t a whole lot more in the human world that could shock me. This definitely did. Daniel was rocking one hell of a black eye. Or was it green and a sickly shade of purple?

“What the hell happened to you?” I asked.

“Nothing. Look, I gotta go, Lidia.”

He was turning away from me and I moved around him, stopping right in front of him so he either had to push me down or squeeze past the flow of other students to get away.

“What happened to you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, still looking down. “Anyway, I guess it’s good that you’re here so I can tell you I’m not interested in seeing you anymore.”

If I didn’t know better I might have flinched at how cold and just a tad bitter his words sounded, as if I’d been the one getting it against the wall by another guy.

“You’re not interested in seeing me anymore?” I repeated what he said and it sounded like a question even though I already knew the answer.

“That’s what I said,” he continued. This time he did look up at me, but he also lifted his hand to act like he wanted to scratch something on his forehead, managing to partially shield the black eye instead. “It’s no big deal, we tried it and it didn’t work. So we’ll move on.”

I nodded. “Right. You moved on and inside of the math intern while I sat in class. No big deal.”

He didn’t even look shocked that I knew, which made me wonder.

“Okay, we’re done, can I go now?”

“Who hit you?” I asked.

“Move out of my way please.”

I tilted my head, saw something beyond the cool blue eyes that I’d found intriguing and the dimple I’d thought was cute. “It was Brayden, wasn’t it? He hit you when he found you with that girl.”

“Look, you and your psycho boyfriend can have each other. I don’t have time for this juvenile brutality. Now move out of my way.”

Daniel did push past me this time and I stayed flattened against the wall while he walked away instead of trying to go after him again. Besides, there was nothing else to say. I knew he was an asshole and he knew Brayden had a serious right hook. I guess that made us even.

* * *

I wanted a latte with a shot or two, or three, of espresso. Actually, I wanted another cranberry and vodka but had a feeling liquor wasn’t going to go well with charting out constellations, which I needed to do tonight for homework. So I stood in the hideously long line at Starbucks during a time when I thought people should be looking for dinner instead of a caffeine high—clearly I was wrong.

Once the guy with the multiple piercings through everything but his eyeball handed me the cup wrongly marked Olivia, I was more than ready to leave, not really wanting to be around people at this moment. The confrontations with Brayden and Daniel had been more than enough for me for one day.

I’d taken a sip which had burned the hell out of my tongue and was heading to the door when she came out of nowhere. I mean, really, why hadn’t I seen her and all that dark hair stacked on top of her head in a riot of curls before she was up in my face with that fake-ass smile?

“Hello,” she said.

“Hi, Kyra,” I replied.

“There’s something I need to say to you.”

No! My mind screamed. I did not want another confrontation and definitely not with this chick.

“I really need to get going, Kyra. I have someone waiting for me and I can’t be late.”

She nodded as if to say “yeah right” then proceeded to poke one of her elegantly painted nails into my shoulder.

“I want you to stay away from Brayden. He doesn’t want you around and neither do I. You’re messing up the plan. So whatever you two may have had before, this ‘friendship’ you both like to call it, is now officially over. Got it?”

It was hard listening to her words because I was much more focused on her continuous poking. Actually, the cat inside was becoming more and more interested in that as well. Another thing the cat seemed to be reacting to was the stench. Kyra reeked of…of…no, not possible. She was a human, I knew that for a fact. And yet, I inhaled again, just one more time to be certain.

“Brayden and I are just friends,” I said in the calmest voice I could muster considering we were standing in the middle of Starbucks.

“Whatever,” she said with a wave of her hand. “We’re all he needs now.”

“We? What are you into, some type of group sex thing? I know Brayden and I don’t think he’s into the swinger scene.” This girl was looking at me like I was the nutcase, when clearly the things she was saying, matched with that weird scent, were what was really out of order here.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, then rolled those big eyes once more. “Look, just stay away from Brayden.”

Was she serious? She’d known Brayden for like fifteen minutes compared to how long I’d known him. Not to mention the fact that I could wrap one hand around her pretty little neck and squeeze, watching the blood drain from her face, if I wanted. Luckily for her I opted for the more human reaction. I nodded like I agreed, saying with absolutely no conviction, “Okay, whatever you say. Can I go now?”

She actually looked like she hadn’t been paying attention to me, but looking somewhere over my shoulder instead. This girl was a real goofball. “Yeah, you can go,” she began sort of absently, but I was already moving around her.

“Bitch!”

I heard the word and thought I saw warning lights flashing red before my eyes. I had an impulsive nature, a temper that didn’t take much to flare up. I knew all this and had promised the Sanchezes I would keep it under wraps while attending the human college, but damn, she’d had to go there.

I turned slowly and was going to ask her to repeat herself but the gloating look she was giving me was just like she’d said the word all over again. I dropped my latte and the palm of my hand landed against her cheek before she could blink those false-ass lashes again. Her head snapped back and a scream escaped her, like I’d been attacking her instead of trying to slap some sense into the tramp. Everyone in Starbucks now had something else to interest them other than overpriced caffeine shots.

“I’m gonna kill you,” Kyra yelled and lunged at me.

It took no thought at all and even less effort to sidestep her. She tumbled into something but I didn’t know what or who, until I turned back around. No, I knew, that’s why I took my time turning around.

I’d scented Brayden the second I smacked her and he’d walked into the store but was otherwise occupied so I couldn’t turn around and act cordial.

“What’s going on here?” he asked, holding a flailing Kyra in his arms.

“She wanted to make it clear that you belonged to her. I wanted to make it clear that my name is Lidia, not bitch.” I finished with a shrug then moved around both of them to walk out the door.

I was at my car, about to put the key in to unlock the door when he came to a stop about three feet away from me.

“You hit her in the middle of a crowded Starbucks, that’s a new one even for you,” Brayden said before chuckling.

His words only exacerbated the guilt trip I was already putting myself through. His laughter scraping along raw nerves that had endured as much as they could for one day. I whirled around, closing the space between us faster than I could blink.

“For your information your little tramp approached me! She poked me and told me I had to stay away from you. Really? Me stay away from you when you’re the one stalking me and my boyfriend all over campus!”

“You’re making another scene,” he said, looking quite amused.

“I don’t give a damn about making a scene! But you are not going to stand here and blame me for this when I’ve been doing nothing but trying to fit in to this place. I’ve been going to classes, studying hard, trying to become the best teacher that I can and what do I get in return? You all of a sudden acting like a sex-crazed maniac, Daniel screwing whatever pair of legs that open, and that crazy-ass girlfriend of yours acting like she owns the world and calling me out of my name.”

By then I was screaming and people that had filed out of the store were now in the parking lot looking at me like I’d lost my mind. Brayden, for his part, had finally decided that maybe this wasn’t as funny as he first thought, took my keys from my hand, and stuffed them into his pocket.

“Come on,” he said, pulling me by the arm and moving toward his truck.

I could have resisted, could have pulled away and yelled at him some more, but I was sick of people staring at me, all of them wondering what was wrong with me. I guess something could be said for the change, at least they weren’t looking at me like the members of the tribe. They weren’t shaking their heads in pity or thinking they were right all along.

Brayden held the passenger side door open and I climbed in, refusing to meet his knowing gaze. I snapped the seat belt in place and folded my arms over my chest, staring straight through the windshield to the darkness.

A minute later we were pulling out of the parking lot. Ten minutes later Brayden was still driving and I was still staring out the window.

“They don’t know about him or about what he did, you know,” he said finally.

I didn’t care what he said or what they knew because none of it mattered. None of them mattered.

“And you’re not him, don’t forget that fact while you’re sitting over there spitting mad at yourself for doing what came natural. She agitated you and you reacted. That doesn’t make you a bad person, it doesn’t make you your uncle.”

I heard his words, he’d said them to me on many occasions before. A part of me recognized them as the truth, while a bigger part thought they represented nothing more than placation. Brayden was so good at that. Whenever I’d felt like I didn’t belong with him and his brothers he’d left them and taken me out alone. We’d spent more time swimming and racing and just sitting on a rock talking than I did with any of the other Sanchez brothers, it was no wonder we were so close. Maybe too close.

“I don’t give a damn about Daniel Mulligan or who he decides to lay up with,” I said, still looking out the window to the trees passing by quickly as Brayden drove on the highway.

“That’s good to hear,” he said. “He wasn’t worth it.”

“I don’t care about your little piece telling me to stay away from you either. If I choose to stay away I will, but not because she tells me to.”

“That’s not an option,” he replied immediately. “I don’t ever want you away from me.”

I looked over at him then. It was dark in the cab of the truck so his face was hidden in shadows but it didn’t matter. I knew everything there was to know about that face. I knew that just beneath his right ear was where a cheetah had taken a chunk out of his skin. It should have either killed him or at the very least left a grisly scar, but because he was a Shadow Shifter, it had done neither. I knew there was a muscle in his jaw that ticked whenever he was getting angry and that his thick eyebrows would furrow just before he shifted into his cat. I also knew that staring at him now and remembering all that was a colossal mistake.

“This all seems so pointless sometimes,” I admitted. “Us coming here trying to live among the humans, trying to gain acceptance. Why go through all of that when beneath it all we’re still different, we’re still outsiders from the jungle? We still don’t belong.”

“You belong wherever you want to be, Lidia. You can do whatever you want to do. The choice is and always will be yours.”

I let those words marinate, wondering how I felt about Brayden saying them.

“As long as I choose what you want,” I said before thinking. “I can be a teacher if I go with you and become an Assembly guard first. I can stay in school as long as I date who you want me to.”

The truck swerved, pulling over onto the side of the road so fast I was lucky to be strapped in.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” Brayden said, turning sideways in his seat so he could face me. “I’ve never told you what to do or how to do it, never said you couldn’t be what you wanted. I came to this school to support you and to be with you and I haven’t left you because I want you to know that you have my support regardless of what you choose to do with your life.”

I opened my mouth to speak but Brayden put his hand over it.

“I’m not finished,” he told me. “As far as who you can date, the truth of the matter is I don’t want you dating anyone.”

Silence filled the cab.

“Anyone but me, that is.”

I sighed, turning away from him. “Take me back to my car, please.”

“After,” he said simply, a growl quickly following the words as he leaned over the console.

I think I knew what he was going to do. On some level I wanted it. The way one of his hands went to the back of my neck, pulling my face to his, and the other grasping my shoulder to hold me still, was breathtaking so I didn’t speak immediately. I also didn’t speak when his lips touched mine, because, well, his lips were on mine and despite all the conflict roaring through my body, this one thing was true. I liked Brayden’s lips on mine.

The kiss was hot and determined, hungry and demanding. His tongue thrust possessively into my mouth, I tilted my head to accept, to devour. Teeth and lips and moans and growls all came together to fill the cab of the truck with the thickest, sweetest-smelling aroma I’d ever imagined. With every inhale my body temperature soared. I wanted, needed more.

And Brayden pulled away.

He hesitated for a second like he wanted to go another round. I had to admit that I wouldn’t have argued that if he did. But the way he looked at me was like he wanted to say something more, maybe yell or shake me, or possibly—please, just one more time—kiss me into submission. My breasts tingled with that thought.

He slid back over to sit rigid in the driver’s seat, both hands gripping the steering wheel with enough intensity to whiten his knuckles. Then he drove off, leaving me to wonder and to want. I moved as close to the door as I could, turning my head until my neck hurt, to stare out the window.

Let my body tell it, I wanted Brayden like I wanted my next breath.

My mind, on the other end, knew it was a mistake, knew that it could not end well, that Brayden and his family might actually pay for the help they’d extended to me. That was what I could not bear, the outcome I would never forgive myself for.

CHAPTER 6

Brayden

After two weeks of this torture, I’d finally had enough and sent Lidia a text before I changed my mind.

WE NEED TO TALK

Tossing the phone onto the counter in my kitchen I moved about methodically fixing my ritual bowl of frosted flakes without really paying much attention to the task. This is how I’d been since dropping Lidia off at her car that night at Starbucks. It’s the only mode I’d been able to work in since sitting in my truck scenting her arousal—albeit mixed with anger—and her still denying what we are to each other.

I’d thought nothing could have made me angrier than seeing them together that night at O’Shea’s. Then I’d caught him with that girl and punched the hell out of him, so I felt justified, instead of angry. But then she still turned away from me. She didn’t have a boyfriend. I didn’t have Kyra, and yet, it still wasn’t enough. Lidia still wasn’t here with me.

The jingle of my phone snatched the angry and somewhat depressive thoughts from my mind and I dropped my spoonful of cereal back into the bowl to answer it.

“Yeah?” I snapped, then sighed. “Hello?”

“You alright?” Aidan asked on the other line.

Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, then letting it out slowly, I was finally able to sound as normal as I possibly could. “I’m cool. How about you? How’s the training going with the FL?”

Aidan’s timing was perfect. Talking about things I knew, things I was sure of, would make me feel better. Training to be a guard, making my future commitment to the Assembly and all it stood for, were what I knew best. They were all I’d been taught growing up, all I’d ever wanted to focus on.

“Things are getting pretty live here. Talk of the rogue army being built is strong. They’re almost positive Sabar’s heading up the effort and even more determined to get him before he gets too many of us.”

“Really? What happened?”

“A prostitute was ripped to shreds the other night and a few months back a senator and his daughter were brutally murdered. Cops are just starting to put the pieces together.”

“Damn, he’s moving fast, huh?”

“Yeah, Rome’s not happy about it. He’s called a telephone conference with all the FLs for a little later this morning, to strategize, I guess,” Aidan finished.

I wished I could be there. I wished I could sit at that table with all those seasoned warriors and listen as they decided how to deal with the biggest threat to the Shadow Shifters in our entire existence. The fact that the threat was one of our own was a damned shame, but one that would be rectified nonetheless.

“That’s not why I’m calling, Bray,” Aidan was saying.

“What? What do you mean? Is it Caleb? Has he gone off and gotten himself in trouble again?” My youngest brother was another one of our parents’ good deeds. It seemed Gil and Marta Sanchez couldn’t help but take in all the wayward and orphaned children of the Gungi.

Caleb’s father had been a human that had happened upon his mother while on a tour of the forest. Both of them had been in a place where they didn’t belong. His father had raped her and Caleb was conceived. When Caleb was five years old his mother had gone out in search of his father and been killed in the village by a human. That’s when Caleb had come to live with us and that’s when, I suspected, his nightmare of a life had taken on another meaning entirely—one outlined with bitterness and revenge.

“No. It’s not Caleb.” Aidan went quiet for a second or so which caused me to shake my phone, pull it away from my ear, and look down at it to make sure the call hadn’t been dropped.

“Hello?” I yelled into the phone. “Aidan?”

“I’m here. Mom’s sick,” he said as if he were saying something as simple as, “it’s raining outside today.”

“What do you mean sick?”

“They’re in London, or at least they were. Dad said she wasn’t feeling well after one of their meetings so she went back to the hotel room to rest. When he arrived hours later she wasn’t responsive so he called an ambulance. They called it exhaustion, said her blood count was low and that she needed iron and rest. They’re on their way back to the States now to find a shifter doctor.”

I leaned forward, unable to simply stand holding the phone any longer. My elbows dropped onto the counter, my head hanging low.

“They’re going to Florida?” I asked, not really able to vocalize any of the other junk running rampant in my head right now.

“Dad thinks it’s best if she’s in her own bed and she can see her ocean while she recuperates.”

“Her” ocean was the Atlantic Ocean, which was right off the coast of the home in Key West where we’d all grown up, when we weren’t traveling the world. It was our American home base, as Dad had told us when he first bought the house. It was Mom’s favorite place, second only to the Gungi.

“He’s right. She’ll rest there and she’ll get better,” I heard myself saying because that’s what I needed to happen.

Aidan was a bit more solemn in his response. “Right. So anyway, I just wanted to let you know.”

I nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Hey, everything alright with you? You sound a little off. I mean, even before I told you about Mom,” Aidan said.

I shook my head as if he could actually see me. Then I stood and opened my eyes, frowning down at the soggy mess my cereal had become. “I’m good.”

“Okay, well, when are you and Lidia heading out here? These finals are going to be brutal so you’ll need all the brushing up you can get.”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. The plan had been for us to leave after graduation and head for the East Coast. But just before the summer kicked off Lidia had started hinting around at maybe not going back for the finals. I tried to dismiss it, talked around it and didn’t really let her go too deep into her reasons, because I hadn’t wanted to hear it, hadn’t wanted to consider that our lives wouldn’t continue as I’d wanted. Then she’d gone to L.A. and hadn’t contacted me for three months. I knew then that the plan was changing, but I still didn’t want to accept it.

“Just a few things that need to be wrapped up first. We may not make it out until a little later than expected.” It was optimistic, I knew, especially after all that had gone down with Daniel and Kyra, but I couldn’t help it. I just couldn’t latch on to the fact that I would go back without Lidia.

“Well, don’t take too long. It’s going to be hard enough getting back into the full swing of things after not actively training for four years. Believe me, I know,” Aidan added with a chuckle.

“Yeah, well, that’s because you were never that good anyway.”

“I can beat your sorry ass. Especially now, I can smell a rogue a mile away.”

“In your dreams,” I commented even though the last of his bragging sort of stuck with me.

We joked for a few minutes more, then both of us agreed to try and get in touch with Caleb to figure out what his status was regarding the finals. Caleb was a fighter, he’d been fighting all his life. Unfortunately, I wasn’t totally sure he was fighting for the same reasons we were and eventually, that would become a problem.

By the time I finished the call with Aidan I’d almost forgotten about my text to Lidia. Until I saw her reply.

YOU’RE RIGHT. WHEN? WHERE?

I frowned. She was agreeing that we needed to talk but I didn’t feel like that was a good thing. Either way, it needed to be done. I could figure out if I was going to like it later.

MY PLACE @6

Her reply was immediate. FINE

CHAPTER 7

Lidia

Brayden didn’t look good.

Well, not in the normal sort of way.

So don’t get me wrong, when he answered the door wearing nothing but basketball shorts that hung low—I mean, almost porn-flick low—on his waist, ankle socks, and tennis shoes, my throat instantly went dry. After a brief hello he’d turned to go back into the apartment and I’d had no choice but to follow behind him, seeing the line of sweat rolling down his spine, in between the two strongest and deliciously defined shoulder blades ever.

Aside from the lust that moved through my mind like a runaway storm, I could still sense that something wasn’t quite right.

Brayden hadn’t spoken since the hello and he’d walked straight through his living room, back toward the second bedroom where he kept his weight bench and other workout equipment. He’d always been a workout freak, wanting to keep his body in pristine condition for all the battling he’d presumed he would be doing as an Assembly guard—a fact that had always baffled me since he still ate meat like he might actually die without it.

He was sitting on the weight bench, one elbow resting on his knee while the other arm stretched forward to pick up another weight. Back and forth he flexed the weight as if it were a feather. It had multiple slats on the bar so I knew that wasn’t true, still, I stood watching, mesmerized.

Brayden had a great body, naturally tanned and beautifully sculpted. His black hair was damp, his face serious as he did one rep after another and another. Finally, I figured I’d better speak up instead of staring like some sort of groupie.

“We should talk about this personal thing that’s going on between us,” I started.

My voice sounded really loud since there was no other noise in the room. Unless I counted the occasional release of breath from Brayden and the slight click of the weights as they moved.

Then he dropped the weight to the floor and I jumped.

“Is that what it is, Lidia? A personal thing?”

Okay, he was definitely angry. I knew that tone, just as I knew he’d go for another weight before actually looking up at me.

“Our entire relationship is personal,” I began. “It’s always been that way. You and I were closer than me and your brothers. I knew that and so did everyone else. When I announced what college I wanted to attend everyone was excited for me, but not you. Then you announced you wanted to come along. I should have stopped you because I knew you weren’t interested in school.”

“There was nothing you could have done or said that would have kept me away,” he said defiantly, honestly.

“And you don’t see how wrong that was? You didn’t realize then that this was heading in the wrong direction?” I inhaled again, reaching both hands up to tuck strands of hair that had fallen from my ponytail behind my ears. “We both should have stopped it when we first felt the change,” I added quietly.

“I don’t mind the change,” was his reply.

I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t watch as he told me about the one thing I absolutely despised about being a Shadow Shifter.

“It’s as natural as breathing, Lidia. It’s what we were made for,” he continued. “And no matter how hard you try to ignore it, or perhaps even run away from it, this will not go away. You know it as well as I do.”

I hated Brayden Sanchez. In this moment I absolutely hated him. So I turned to leave the room, to go into the living room, maybe to run away as he’d just mentioned. I don’t know, it was just too hard to stand here and tell him I never wanted to see him again, that for my sanity and my well-being I needed to get as far away from him as possible. As tough as I’d always had to be against the people of my tribe and then the human females of this school that in the beginning thought I’d be an easy target, I didn’t think I had the guts to do what I knew needed to be done where Brayden was concerned.

His hands on my shoulders stopped me as he drew me back up against him. My body stiffened, the cat inside instantly awakening.

“I would do anything for you, you know that, Lidia. Anything in this world I could give you or make happen for you, I would.” He spoke softly into my ear. “But don’t ask me to walk away from you, from what’s inside us both. Please don’t ask me to do that.”

My chin dropped to my chest and I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the heat whirling through my body, the desire scraping along the surface of my skin. “I need you to, Brayden. I need you to do this for me.”

He was shaking his head, I knew it without even seeing him. “I can’t.”

“Please,” I whispered, feeling the length of his arousal pressing into my backside.

“It’s not going to work, Lidia. Denial is just not going to work,” he said, turning me around then and staring down at me.

I gasped because his eyes weren’t his. Well, they were but they were his cat’s. I closed mine, holding them tightly shut no matter how juvenile the act made me feel.

“I know who you are even if I weren’t looking at you through cat’s eyes,” he said, leaning forward and kissing each closed lid.

I shivered with the contact.

“And with your eyes closed, you know exactly who and what I am.”

He kissed over my cheekbones, down to my jaw, and my neck.

“You know what we are together, o meu melhor amigo. Meu companheiro. Parte di mim.”

My eyes didn’t open, they didn’t need to. When Brayden’s lips brushed over mine, they parted willingly. My hands went to his bare chest, rubbing over damn perfect pectorals as my tongue met his in a heated duel that promised more to come. He held me around my waist tightly, as if he might actually be afraid to let me go. But I wasn’t going anywhere, just like Brayden had said before, I couldn’t.

Not once he’d walked us backward until my back hit the wall and he grasped my butt with hungry fingers. I moaned, deep and long and his fingers pressed into my crevice seemingly right through the material of my yoga pants. My nipples tingled, my hands clenching against his chest. It was a good thing I wasn’t the long-fingernail type of girl or I might have caused some serious scarring.

“Wrap your legs around me,” he instructed, his teeth scraping along the line of my neck as he spoke.

I did what he said, giving my weight over to him, trusting he wouldn’t let me go, possibly ever. When my ankles were crossed behind his back Brayden pressed closer into me, his hands going beneath the band of my pants, under my ass, until his fingers slid right into my moistness. I sucked in a breath, letting my head loll back at the contact.

“Sweetness,” he whispered. “From now on I’m gonna call you sweetness.”

He could call me whatever he wanted as long as he didn’t stop touching me. “Bray.” I gasped his name when his nimble fingers parted my folds, two thrusting inside my center. Another breath whooshed out of me just before his tongue was dipping inside in search of mine once more. He was kissing me and his fingers were milking me and I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t figure out why I was going to never see him again, why this was so wrong.

And then there was a knock at the door.

“Ignore it! I don’t know anybody I want to see right now,” Brayden said, pressing his rigid erection against me while his fingers continued their in and out torture.

I’d grasped his shoulders by that point; the ripples of pleasure soaring through my body were so intense I felt like I might actually take off if I didn’t hold on. “But they’re still knocking,” I told him even though the thought of him not touching me anymore was just about painful.

Brayden paused then, looking at me with golden eyes that all but glittered with passion. I couldn’t help it, I leaned in and took his lips, sucking the bottom one into my hungry little mouth, pressing my swollen breasts against his bare chest. Dammit, I wished I were naked, wished we were skin to skin and that there wasn’t anyone ready to knock down his freakin’ front door!

“You have to answer it,” I said after reluctantly pulling my mouth away from his. “They don’t seem to be going away.”

“Stupid bastards,” he muttered. “Probably some damned salesperson…or…” His words drifted to nothing while pulling his hands from my pants.

His body had tensed, his face fixed into a frown. I let my legs down until my feet were on the floor, but I didn’t move right away, I was still too wobbly from the pleasure of his touch. I knew his mind was someplace else, knew that he’d gone into defense mode and was now all about finding his prey and…I swallowed deeply, looked away from him. I hoped and prayed, but I also picked up the scent, I also knew.

When he grabbed my chin, lifting my head up so that I could look at him, there was something I thought I should say to stop him, to aid him, something. And yet, there was nothing.

“Don’t move until I come get you,” he said sternly, seriously, his gaze holding mine.

“Brayden,” his name was a sigh even as I shook my head.

“Do. Not. Move.” he reiterated through clenched teeth and then he moved away. He left me in that room, to go out there to face an enemy.

I knew it with each inhale, knew from the look in his eyes that this would not be good.

CHAPTER 8

Brayden

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked the minute I yanked open the door to see Kyra standing on the other side.

Her dark hair had been pulled back into a tight ponytail and she wore practically no makeup, so I might not have known it was her, except her scent was undeniable, wanton—strong and potent like mint. She was also dressed drastically different than I’d seen her before, tight black pants with a long-sleeved black shirt that hugged all her curves. It was a good thing my mind was on another set of women’s parts.

“I wanted to give you another chance,” she said, taking a step so that she was now directly in front of me. She looked up at me with those big gray eyes that seemed to see too much.

“No, thank you,” I said, taking a step back. Proximity made no difference, she smelled like a rogue, there was no mistaking. Aidan’s words had echoed in my head at the second knock on the door, to be followed by the scent. But I knew that Kyra was human, which meant she must have been with a rogue, in the sexual sense.

I hadn’t figured out how that made me feel, nor had I anticipated she would follow me into the apartment.

“Really, Brayden, this disinterested act is getting kind of old. I mean, you were the one panting after me just a few weeks ago, then all of a sudden you look the other way. I know it was because of her. But like I said, I’m willing to give you another chance. He’s willing to give you another chance.”

All the while she’d been talking she’d come farther into the apartment until she was now standing in the middle of the living room floor, hands on her hips, head tilted slightly as she waited for an answer.

“Who is giving me another chance?” I asked, remembering things Kyra had said to me in the past, trying to piece together her scent, her persistence, her entire being in my apartment at this moment.

I grabbed her by the shoulders then, shaking her until the gold chandelier-like earrings wiggled at her ears.

“I’m not going to ask for the truth again, Kyra. Tell me why you’re here, what you want.”

She laughed then, letting her head fall back. “It’s not about me, it never was. Never is actually,” she added, attempting to shrug out of my grasp. “He’s always wanted you,” she insisted. “Of all of them, you were the strongest, the best.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, pulling my hands away from her as if she’d been a live flame. The scent was strong, but that wasn’t all; for the first time in all the weeks I’d known Kyra I noticed the tattoo, or rather the branding mark, just beneath her left ear. It was a paw print.

“I’m not leaving,” she insisted. “Not without you.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I told her, hands clenching at my sides as the rogue stench grew more potent, fresher, closer.

“Oh yes the hell you are,” Lidia said, coming out of the bedroom and giving Kyra the death stare I’d seen her administer only a few times before.

Things were about to get live in here and despite how some human guys loved to see a chick fight, I knew better. Lidia Morales was not your normal chick and if I had to place a bet I’d put all my money, Aidan and Caleb’s money, and let’s just go ahead and add all the money in the humans’ Fort Knox that Lidia would come out on top. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind.

“Oh great, her again. I tried to warn you, bitch!” she spat in Lidia’s direction. “Now you both go.”

Instinct, the need to protect my mate at all costs overrode the desire to toss Kyra out on her ass and find the answers to my questions later. My temples pounded at the thought that I’d missed something, that I’d missed this all the time I’d been trying to figure out how to get Lidia to acknowledge our connection. For all the training I’d done all my life, when it had really come down to a test, I’d fucked up royally. My teeth clenched as I took a step closer to Lidia, those thoughts still prevalent in my mind.

In the next seconds, three guys dressed in the same black garb as Kyra came rushing through the door, guns drawn, all shouting, “Get the hell on the floor!” “Get down now!” “Get the fuck down!”

If I said this situation wasn’t going to end well before, glancing over at Lidia, I knew for certain it wasn’t now. The really bad thing was, there was absolutely nothing I or Lidia—even with all the training we’d received as shifter guards—could do to keep the next events from taking place.

* * *

Lidia didn’t get down. I knew she wouldn’t. Kyra, on the other hand, didn’t know shit, and moved across the room quickly, pushing Lidia until she fell over the leather chair. “Didn’t you hear what they said, bitch? Sit your ugly ass down!”

When Lidia stood again she looked remarkably different. Her hair was now loose, hanging down past her shoulders in wild strands and her eyes had shifted to gold.

Things happened quickly after that, with me reaching out to grab the wrist of the first gun-toting idiot, cracking the bone almost instantly and watching as he cried out in agony. Another gun was quickly pointed in my direction and to his credit, fired almost instantly. I say almost because the assholes could never have anticipated my speed or the preparation I’d endured most of my life. While I leaned to the side the bullet whizzed past my shoulder and I lunged for the dumbass. I had him on the floor, the gun skidding across the room when I heard a female scream.

For a second I thought maybe, but no, Lidia was just as good, if not better, at hand-to-hand combat as my brothers and I. In fact, there was an ongoing bet to settle that very dispute. So I knew it wasn’t her screaming. Still, I didn’t like the idea of her taking on two opponents while I was just about finished with this one.

The cat in me was programmed to kill. My teeth had already grown sharp, the sounds coming from me no longer human, but pure animal. The dude beneath me tried to punch and kick his way free, but it was futile, my strength outweighed his easily.

“You can come easily or we can drag you kicking and screaming. Whichever, as long as he gets what he wants,” he said, staring up at me as if he really thought I’d just go along to wherever with them.

Instead I reared back and punched him once, blood splattering quickly from his nose. “No deal. You tell whoever ‘he’ is to go to hell!” was my reply as I hit him again, just for good measure, his head bobbing against the floor for a second or so before going still.

A quick look toward the door and the first guy was still on his knees, crying like a bitch, staring down at his crooked wrist. In the living room Kyra lay on the floor holding a hand to the bleeding side of her face while Lidia went toe to toe with the guy I figured might actually be the ringleader.

“All you had to do was let Kyra bring you in,” the guy was saying as he looked over his shoulder to me before moving closer to Lidia. “Now, I’m going to kill your bitch!”

Being cocky, tossing out ridiculous threats, and looking away from his opponent, all big mistakes when dealing with a Shadow Shifter.

Lidia whirled around, lifting her left leg into the air and letting her foot crack against the guy’s jaw the second he turned back to face her. He stumbled back then lifted his gun arm while spitting all sorts of expletives at her. I was across the room in seconds, my body shifting as it moved. In the blink of an eye I was the cat and the cat was mad as hell at the thought that its mate was in danger. Sharp-edged teeth sank into the human skull without warning or regret. A gunshot sounded seconds before the gun fell from his grip to the floor. The cat held firm until the human went still, then released its hold and instantly looked for her.

She was standing across from where the human lay dead on the floor, her cat’s eyes looking down, and claws extended from her hands. Unlike the other female who was now screaming at the top of her lungs, Lidia was barely out of breath. Her hair was sticking up wildly as it framed her face, her body taut, ready to strike.

“Go,” she told the cat. “Go, now.”

The scrambling of furniture Lidia was pushing out of the way after the fight and the sound of sirens in the distance moved the cat toward the bedroom, but not before it roared, the command for its mate to follow so loud the windows actually shook.

“I’m coming, I gotta take care of her, just go!”

“No!” I yelled to her, the human part of me ripping free and refusing to leave her to kill Kyra. “We go together.”

Lidia shook her head. “The exposure, we can’t,” she insisted.

“Oh my god, you’re just like him. You’re all just like him!” Kyra shrieked when she’d finally been able to stand up from the floor. She was shaking as she stared at us, fear circling her like a hurricane. “I can’t do this anymore. I won’t,” she said before finally yelling, “What the hell are you?”

Lidia made a move for her first, but I reached out and grabbed her arm to stop her. I was completely naked but didn’t give a damn, I wouldn’t have this death resting on Lidia’s shoulders, not when she was already against living out her destiny in the first place. “I’ll do it,” I told her and instantly turned back to Kyra, walking toward her.

Kyra, who I never would have guessed had any guts in her gorgeously built body, shook her head vehemently, reaching into her back pocket for something. “Stay away from me,” she warned. “I’ve had enough of this, of him, of you! Of all of you! Just stay the hell away from me!” She yelled, her eyes wild with fear, lips trembling as she spoke.

I didn’t pay much attention to what she was reaching for, or her words for that matter, because whatever she had was going to be futile against me. But the moment I went to lunge she fooled the shit out of me and ran for the window, throwing her body through it as if falling to her death was better than the instant kill I would have inflicted.

“Oh my god, she jumped,” Lidia said from behind me. “She actually jumped.”

The sirens were getting louder and I noticed the front door to my apartment was still open. I was on the top floor and for whatever reason the two remaining apartments up here hadn’t been rented out, so for the moment we were up here alone. “I gotta get some clothes then we have to leave.”

Lidia nodded. “Right, we’ve gotta leave.”

She hadn’t moved from the window, just stood there staring down at where Kyra had probably landed on the sidewalk.

Seconds later we were heading down the fire exit stairs, slipping out into the parking lot that was quickly filling with people wondering what the hell was going on. Luckily for us, they were all pooling toward the front of the building where Kyra lay. Still, it was going to be hard trying to get to my truck.

“We’re gonna have to stay here, at least until this dies down,” Lidia said.

“No,” I said, looking around. “We can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

Lidia grabbed my arm to get me to turn and look at her. “If we go running through those people we’re going to look guilty as hell. If we make it to your truck and pull off into the night, they’re going to take down the license plate and tell the cops the first chance they get. We need to just stand here and blend in until it’s safe to ease away.”

“They’ll still know it was us because it was my apartment,” I rebutted, adrenaline flowing rapidly at the thought of her possibly being hurt.

“Most of these apartments are student housing so they’re most likely going to look for a student. You’re not an enrolled student this semester and by the time they figure that out we’ll be long gone,” she insisted.

We were wasting time standing here arguing so at this point her idea to blend in with the crowd seemed like the best option. I reached for her hand, clasping our fingers together. “Don’t leave my side,” I told her because after seeing a gun pointed at her head, I was liable to kill all the humans on this fuckin’ campus to keep her safe.

I took the lead, holding her hand tightly as we walked right in the midst of the growing crowd out front of the building. As we passed through the parking lot there were clumps of people near my truck and making their way up here. Lidia had given me that “I told you so” look and I’d frowned. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Questions were rolling through my mind a mile a minute, all skidding to a halt behind the plan to keep Lidia safe.

“We have to let somebody know about the exposure,” she whispered when I’d stopped and stood staring at the building, not at Kyra’s body lying in a pool of blood.

I was thinking that getting us out of here was the priority and would have never guessed Lidia would be thinking about the Ètica or how badly we’d broken one of the staunchest laws of the Shadow Shifters.

“As soon as they move the body the crowd will disperse, then we can walk back to the truck.”

“Assuming they don’t connect you as the renter of that apartment to owning that Ford F-150 you’re trying to get us back to.”

Her comments were really starting to irritate me, either that or the fact that she was right. For the next few moments, thankfully, we waited in silence, but for the whispers of those around us. Some people knew Kyra, others were just horrified that something like this had happened here. There was another whisper about some type of new gang in the area that caught my attention, but I filed that away for later. Now was about getting the hell out of here.

“Come on,” I told her when a couple of uniformed cops had begun trying to push the crowd back. Four men in suits, most likely homicide detectives, had already gone into the building, so we probably had a good thirty or forty minutes to get out of Pacifica before they connected the dots back to me. Her hand was warm against mine as we walked as calmly as possible through the parking lot. Others were going back this way also, still guessing at what could have happened in the apartment, none of them even close to the truth.

I didn’t let Lidia’s hand go until I had the seat belt fastened across her in the truck. Then I slammed the door and all but jumped over the vehicle itself to get to the driver’s side door. Once inside I started the engine and backed out as fast as I could without making the tires screech and drawing attention to us. For her part, Lidia remained quiet, staring out the window while I took us farther and farther away from the apartment complex.

It was hours later when we finally stopped. We were on the highway so I didn’t want to stay here too long, but Lidia had been right, we needed to let someone know what had happened, someone who would know how to fix the exposure we’d created. I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and called my big brother.

“Hey? Is everything alright?” Aidan answered. It was late afternoon in Washington, D.C., so it was no wonder he sounded alarmed.

“No. It’s not,” I told him immediately, reciting what had gone down in my apartment, still amazed at the events myself.

“Shit!” had been Aidan’s first response. “You killed all of them?”

“No. I killed one of them. One guy I left unconscious, the other I broke his wrist, and the girl killed herself.”

“Damn, Brayden, what the hell is going on out there?”

I wish I knew. Shaking my head, I told my brother all that I knew for sure. “I dated the girl a couple of times during the last few weeks, broke it off about two weeks ago, then she shows up tonight talking about I was who ‘he’ wanted. Before I could try to figure out who ‘he’ was, the guys stormed in and I figure she knows them because they’re all dressed in black. One of the guys mentioned me going with them, that Kyra was supposed to bring me to him. Now they’re dead and I still don’t know who ‘he’ is!”

“Wait a minute, so this was about somebody wanting you? Wanting you to do what? For who?” Aidan asked.

I frowned, looking over the dashboard to the open road. “That’s all I know right now. Nobody ever said a name. “

Aidan let out a breath, cursed, then huffed again. “Okay, we’ll figure it out. Where are you now and where’s Lidia?”

“We’re on the highway right now,” I told him.

“Good, stay on the highway,” Aidan said and I heard some shuffling in the background. “Jace Maybon, the Pacific Faction Leader, is out of the country. I know because I was allowed to sit in on the conference call.”

“They’re letting you in on conference calls with the leadership already?”

“Only because of my face time with the rogues when I was in Virginia.”

I nodded, almost having forgotten about Aidan’s exposure issues a few weeks ago. Not only had he killed a rogue in an alley, but his mate was a human, which equaled major exposure, which in retrospect made him the perfect person to call.

“Head down the coast to L.A. Jace has a beach house in Malibu that should be empty.”

“So after all I’ve done tonight you want me to break into an FL’s house as well? Are you crazy?”

“No, I’m not crazy. He’s having some work done in a couple of the bedrooms so contractors will be there. All you have to do is tell them you’re Jace’s representative and that you’re going to stay to oversee the project.”

“And what if they call him?” I had to ask even though this sounded like our perfect getaway.

“They won’t be able to reach him, only his personal assistant can reach him and Jace said she’s a real bitch so nobody likes to deal with her. They won’t want to voluntarily call the woman just to confirm who you are.”

It sounded like it might work and I had to think about getting Lidia somewhere safe for a while so I could figure out what Kyra and her dumb thugs had been trying to accomplish. “Alright, text me the address,” I told Aidan. “I’ll call you when we get there.”

After hanging up the phone I was about to pull onto the road when I chanced a look at Lidia. She’d still been staring out the window and I touched a hand to her arm.

“You alright?”

She nodded, blinking rapidly, her eyes back to their normal light color, but not their normal luster. Something was on her mind. Hell, a lot of something was likely on both our minds.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Aidan has a place for us to stay. We’ll head there and get some rest, then figure all this out in the morning.”

She nodded. “Sure, we’ll break into the FL’s house and stay there while we’re thinking of how to get out of the exposure we just caused. You’re absolutely right, everything is going to be okay.”

Her frown highlighted the sarcastic last words but I didn’t bother to argue, just pulled out onto the road and drove.

CHAPTER 9

Lidia

Jace Maybon’s beach house was beautiful. I didn’t really expect anything less since I knew that he was the flashiest and most outgoing of the Faction Leaders. That may or may not be directly related to his job in the human world as a talent agent.

Anyway, I couldn’t stop gawking at his house. It was like a white fortress jutting upward from lush green grass on one side and sinking down to smooth sandy beach on the other. The sound of the ocean and its distinct salty aroma drifted through the open window of the truck as Brayden drove up the driveway. The truck hadn’t been stopped for more than five seconds before I was unsnapping the seat belt and getting out.

Standing with the warm morning’s sun beaming down on my face, I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. I loved California and wanted definitely to stay here and teach. If that were even still a possibility, because after last night I had no idea what the Assembly was going to do with us. In reality, we weren’t a part of a dictatorship or any type of cult that physically punished anyone for defecting or breaking the laws—my family especially would be grateful for that.

Still, we’d exposed ourselves to humans, actually killed two of them—even if Kyra’s death was indirect. Who knew what the other two were saying to the cops who were probably trying to figure out how to issue a manhunt for two half-humans, half-jaguars.

“Hey, you okay?”

Brayden’s hand on my shoulder was what snapped me out of my thoughts, not necessarily his question. That was because of this infernal heat that seemed to only radiate throughout my body when he was either very near or touching me, exacerbated by the touch so that I could almost think of nothing else.

“Fine,” I said, moving as fast as I could away from him. “Where’s the key?”

“Because the workers are here and Jace isn’t, there was a skeleton key made. Aidan says it’s likely in Jace’s office someplace but that the back entrance should be open.”

I shook my head, preoccupying myself with keeping my feet on each flat stone of the path going through the grass up to the house. “Jace Maybon is a high-profile celebrity agent, not to mention the leader of the entire Pacific Zone of Shadow Shifters, so why in the world is he leaving his doors unlocked?”

“I asked Aidan the same thing when we were texting during the ride. He said Jace is rarely ever here and the deed is actually in his married sister’s name so it can’t be traced back to him.”

“Why?”

“Something about him not trusting his brother-in-law to honor his sister so he wants to make sure she and her newborn daughter are well taken care of.”

“Overprotective much?” I mumbled as we stepped up to the front door.

“It’s not a crime for a man to look out for those he loves,” Brayden said, stepping up beside me.

He looked at me like he wanted those words to mean something else, so I looked away, because they actually did. Only, I couldn’t afford to let the implications break down my defenses. I couldn’t afford to think along the lines of Brayden protecting me as only a mate should. I would not think about that.

“See if it’s open,” I said to him since he was blocking me from doing it myself.

“When we get inside we should talk,” he said sternly.

“You said that yesterday and when I showed up I did all the talking. I don’t really see the point now.”

“The point is that a few things have happened since I texted you about talking and I think now more than ever we need to get everything out in the open on the subject.”

“Right now, the only thing I’d like to get out requires a bathroom so can you please try to open the door,” I insisted impatiently.

When he turned to do just that I rolled my eyes and sighed inwardly because I knew I was being unreasonable. Being upset with Brayden because he’d been right all along was petty. Being upset with my DNA was even more pointless. But dammit, I wanted to be upset! I didn’t want to have a mate and I especially didn’t want that mate to be Brayden. Being forever bonded with another Shadow Shifter—one that had pledged his life to the tribe when he was ten years old—was even worse. I did not want my life to be dedicated to the tribe, did not want anything to do with the lousy hypocrites to be exact. Not to mention the fact that I might be genetically unstable and prone to drifting off with the rogues just like my uncle had. I just wanted to lead a normal life, for as much as a girl like me could.

The door opened and Brayden walked into the house. I followed behind him not really knowing what to expect, being overly impressed anyway. The clean, fresh white from the outside of the house carried over into the foyer as the marbled floors glistened and the bare walls sparkled. It may have been too much of a clean slate, but looking to the left into what must be the living room and the entire wall of windows that practically brought the ocean right inside, I decided that it worked.

“It’s lovely in here,” I said, unable to keep quiet a moment longer.

“Yeah, he’s definitely putting his money to good use. I’ll bet this is a sound investment and will make his sister a good chunk of change should she ever need to sell it.”

We were standing in the center of the living room now with its pastel-colored rug and wheat-colored furniture. I, of course, felt like this could be a home, while Brayden, of course, was thinking along other lines. It seemed we hadn’t been on the same page in a long time. That thought saddened me.

“I’m going to take a shower and change,” I told him.

It was a good thing I’d insisted on stopping at the dorm to get my clothes. Brayden had been against it, thinking that the police might be there, but I was certain they wouldn’t have connected us that soon. I was right and had been able to get inside and pack a bag. Of course, Cora immediately started asking all kinds of questions until I finally shouted for her to mind her business. As many times as I’d said that before she’d never really listened, just continued her comments in a lower voice. This time, however, she shut up immediately. That may have been because my cat’s eyes were still on display, as I found out when I went to the coatrack to get my jacket and caught a glimpse in the mirror. Afterward I hurried out of the room not waiting for any more questions from Cora or willing to risk any more exposure than we already had.

“I’ll go upstairs with you. If those workers are in the bedrooms I don’t want any of them walking in on you while you’re in the shower.”

I thought about telling him I could take care of some horny humans looking for a good time, or even the one that might figure I was breaking and entering—which I sort of was—and called the cops. But I didn’t. There was just too much going on right now in my head for me to deal with that too. If Brayden wanted to go all macho man and handle the situation for me, then let him, I just wanted a hot shower and a few minutes alone to regroup.

* * *

After the shower I was so tired from sitting up in the truck all night and from fighting with the humans, I guess, I lay down on the first bed I saw, intending to simply rest for a few minutes. That turned into an epic nap and when I woke up the house was eerily quiet.

The sun had set. I noticed that because the room wasn’t as bright as it had been. Curtains or blinds were a no-show in this place so I could see the burnt orange of the sky just about to migrate into darkness. For a few moments I sat on the edge of the bed just looking at the beautiful sight, forgetting how crappy things in my life had quickly turned.

“Are you hungry?”

He’d been sitting across the room for I don’t know how long, but I’d felt his presence the moment I opened my eyes.

“Yes, a little,” I replied, not looking at him.

“The kitchen is stocked. I can fix you a salad or something,” he told me.

I shook my head. “You only cook microwave food and cereal.”

“I think I saw some of that soy milk you like in the refrigerator.”

I couldn’t help it, I smiled, and minutes later I was downstairs with Brayden mixing a salad for myself and boiling two disgusting-smelling hot dogs for him. He sat at the island, arms folded over his chest watching every move I made in silence. It seemed oddly domestic and much more comfortable than I wanted to admit. So I did what I do best, I ignored it and him for as long as I could.

CHAPTER 10

Brayden

I’d watched her sleeping. She lay on her right side, curled up like a baby, hands cushioning her face as if the pillows just weren’t good enough. Her damp hair fanned behind her, long lashes resting against the olive tone of her skin. My fingers itched to touch her, mouth watered at the idea of climbing into the bed and spooning my body against hers. Her scent filled my mind until even if I ran out of this house, down to the beach, and thrust myself into the waves, she’d still feel like she was right next to me. I’d want her just as strongly and need her just as badly.

This feeling wasn’t going away, it would never subside and I’d always need my companheiro with me. What did that say for how this current situation between us would turn out?

Now that we were in the kitchen and she was moving around, keeping herself occupied with fixing something to eat, she would convince herself that it was all settled, that there was nothing else for us to say or do. But she was wrong. There was still so much between us, like a huge barrier that I could neither climb nor knock down, no matter how strong I claimed to be.

“Aidan says the Assembly is worried about the rise in the number of rogues coming Stateside,” I said as a form of broaching one of the touchy subjects.

There may be a barrier between us but I wasn’t going to let that intimidate me, I couldn’t.

I could see her shoulders drop as she stood at the stove, forking each hot dog out of the pot and placing them onto the slices of bread she’d put neatly on a plate.

“Wherever there’s good, bad will always follow,” she said quietly.

“Your mom tell you that?” I asked, already knowing the answer. After her brother had defected, Adelina Morales had gone into a sort of depression, only talking to her husband and Lidia, who was too young to really understand what was going on, but old enough to know that something was horribly wrong. I’d always been amazed at how much Lidia had managed to retain from that time, the words she remembered, the snickers and the insults, all of which she endured until my parents took her away.

“Yes,” was her reply. “It’s inevitable. Whether it was someone I knew or was related to or someone you knew or were related to. There are always those that want more, that are guided by greed and opportunity. There’s nothing any of us can do to stop that.”

This was her defense, the one she’d practiced over the years. It was a casual indifference to what was going on in our world, a resolute demeanor that didn’t land her on either side of the cause. I was used to it and normally ignored it, but this time, I was afraid that maybe it was time for Lidia to chose a side.

We ate in silence and I cleaned up the dishes since she’d prepared the food. Of course she hadn’t stayed in the kitchen with me so I’d had to go and find her when I was finished. She was lying on her side in the center of the king-sized bed in the same room where she’d slept the day away—the only room that wasn’t being torn apart by renovations.

I’d been in those rooms earlier, had spoken to who I assumed was the foreman of the crew. He’d backed up Aidan’s contention that they had no intention of contacting Jace’s assistant. The fact that I said I knew Jace and that he’d supposedly given me permission to stay here had seemed like enough for the man and a few hours after our meeting, he and his crew had packed up to leave for the day.

Hours had passed since then and now I stood in this doorway once again, staring at the girl I’d grown up with, that I knew so much about and yet felt so mentally far away from. I hated the disconnect I’d been feeling with Lidia, and I wanted it to stop right now.

After taking off my boots I climbed onto the bed slowly, so as not to wake her. I scooted over on my side until the warmth of her body greeted mine. With one arm on the pillows above her head, I wrapped the other around her waist, pulling her even closer. Inhaling deeply, the fresh scent of her hair tickled my nose and I smiled. For what seemed like forever, I lay there, in the quiet, holding her against me, listening to the steady sound of her breathing and the distant sounds of the tide crashing against the sand.

“It’s not the same,” she said softly.

So softly I might not have heard her if I weren’t still wide awake and my senses so in tune to her.

“I know we’re not the same as we were before, Brayden,” she continued. “I thought I could ignore it, or push it aside, or something. But I realize now it’s not working.”

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” I confessed. She sounded like she was admitting to a murder as opposed to accepting our new relationship and I didn’t like that at all.

“It’s different, Bray, you have to admit that. Since I was eleven years old you’ve been one of the first people I’ve seen each morning and one of the last I see at night. You’ve listened to me bitch about one thing after another and taught me how to swim and climb trees.”

I kissed the top of her head. “You taught me how to play poker and how to shoot an arrow.”

“You were there the night I lost my virginity to Frankie Morrison.”

I swallowed hard, trying desperately not to picture that night. That had been the moment I knew Lidia Morales was meant for me and me only.

“I wanted to break his legs,” I admitted.

She chuckled. “By the next morning, so did I.”

Silence fell again.

“I wish I could have it all,” she whispered.

I moved then, turning Lidia until she lay on her back and I could look down into her face. I cupped her chin, holding her face so she couldn’t look away. “I only wish I could have you.”

Lidia closed her eyes, her lips slightly parted as she breathed. I leaned in and kissed her, touching my lips to hers lightly at first, until I could hear not only the wild thumping of my heart, but the matching beat of hers. I wouldn’t touch her but for her lips, instead giving her the chance to decide, to stay or to leave.

Not on board with the patience game plan, my tongue snaked out, licking along the line of her lips, touching the soft wet inside in one heated stroke. She gasped then, her tongue seeking mine, her arms lifting to lace around my neck. At that point slow was no longer an option as the cat inside me roared to life, ready and more than willing to stake its claim.

My hands slipped around her waist, pulling her closer to me. I loved the feel of her tight body in my hands, the way she eagerly wrapped her long limbs around me. Rolling over, she now lay on top of me, her fingers scraping through my hair. I cupped her ass, pressing her core into my erection, desperate to get inside her, finally.

Her hair curtained our faces as she pulled back slightly from the kiss.

“I still can’t believe it,” she whispered. “My best friend is also my …”

She paused as if she couldn’t finish the sentence so I finished it for her, taking her lips once again, thrusting my tongue deep inside her mouth as my hands went beneath the rim of the shorts she wore, loving the feel of her pliant cheeks against my skin.

I was drowning in her, in the kiss that was fiery hot and the feel of her on top of me, which was the answer to all my dreams. When her hands moved between our bodies to unsnap my jeans I sucked in a breath.

Lidia moved, pulling back so that she could release my erection. Her hands on my length were so damned hot, and sent spikes of pleasure soaring through my body. Her fingers didn’t shake as she gripped me, but moved softly up and down my sensitive skin. The realization that she may have done this before to someone else flashed through my mind. I clenched my teeth with the thought and whispered her name to keep myself focused.

She was here with me, where she belonged. After today she’d never touch another man, never think of another, not if I had anything to say about it.

“Your hands feel so good,” I told her, meaning every word.

“I thought about you,” she said as she stared down at my length and her hand, the blend of her lighter-toned skin against mine.

“I couldn’t think of anything but you,” I admitted.

“Even when you were with Kyra?”

If the thought of her with another dude rubbed me the wrong way, her mentioning Kyra—the chick that just set me up and jumped out of my living room window to her death—was like a splash of cold water in an otherwise heated moment.

“None of them, no other female, has ever compared to you,” I told her honestly. “They’ve always been substitutions and after them I wanted you even more.”

She paused, looking at me like she wasn’t sure how to take that. I didn’t want to give her too much time to think on it, so I reached up, grabbing the hem of her T-shirt, and pulling it over her head. Her braless breasts bobbed as she lifted her arms then let them fall at her sides. High up on her chest with pert, perfect fuckin’ nipples, I couldn’t resist, I sat up taking one in my mouth, palming the other.

Lidia, bless her everlasting shifter heart, arched her back, thrusting those pretty-ass tits right in my face and my dick grew rock hard. The talking stopped at that point, not just because my mouth was otherwise occupied, but because I was ready to be inside her.

Clothes came off then, flying in multiple directions throughout this room that didn’t even belong to us. When we were both finally naked Lidia moved to lie on her back.

“Uh-uh, I want you right here where I can watch you,” I told her, pulling her so that she straddled me once more.

She came willingly, lifting her hips until she was angled directly above my dick that couldn’t keep still for wanting her so desperately. My hands on her hips, I lowered her slowly until warmth engulfed my tip.

“Brayden,” she whispered my name.

I looked into her eyes and knew the question we both already knew the answer to. The fact that she was about to ask it made me feel a lot better because it meant she’d been sure to say this to her previous lovers, sure to act as human as she possibly could while within their world.

“Sexually transmitted diseases are not something shifters have to worry about,” I reminded her.

She nodded and jerked her hips back a fraction, releasing the slight touch of my erection to my displeasure.

“Right,” she said. “You’re absolutely right.”

Lidia moved her hips again, slamming herself down onto my length in one quick motion. I couldn’t help it, I gasped, the rush of pleasure shooting from my groin to my toes was intense and for a second I thought I might actually black out.

Then she began to move and I moved with her until we were both lost, until there was nothing but our bodies, our connection, the two of us.

CHAPTER 11

Lidia

I dreamed of Brayden’s lips on mine, his hands on my body, his delicious length inside me. I relived the scent of his arousal, the scent of my own, and the combination that signaled our companheiro calor. I sank slowly but surely into that space, the one where I was his and he was mine and I enjoyed it. I had everything—my companheiro, my education, the future of becoming a teacher and touching many lives. I had it all.

And then he appeared.

Right there in the center of having it all, he walked into the scene as if I’d invited him, or at the very least left the door open for his entrance. I should have known he would come, should have suspected that happiness was too good to be true.

His hair was long, twisted in dreads hanging down his back, draped over both his shoulders. His pants were loose fitting over muscled thighs, his arms and chest bare but for the dark-colored vest he wore. His boots crunched against the ground that had turned from city concrete to jungle grass and vine. His eyes glittered as they met mine, a slow smile forming on his dark-skinned face.

It was my uncle, Sabar, and he was here for me.

“You know what I want,” he said when he was close enough for me to hear.

I looked for Brayden, looked for the person that had been closest to me all my life, the one who had been there when I’d had the first nightmare about my family. He’d held me then, telling me that I wasn’t like them, making me feel like there was something else, something bigger and better that I could be a part of instead. Now he was gone.

“They cannot help protect you now that you have grown up and are able to choose for yourself,” Sabar continued, the heavy accent of his voice almost distorting the words.

“You will come with me because you know it is where you belong, Lidia. You know this is what you want,” he insisted.

I took a step back, my booted feet moving over asphalt. I looked down then because I almost tripped over the sidewalk. But he reached out to me then and grabbed me, kept me from falling.

“You do not want to be a part of the Shadow Shifters, you want to be free. I can smell it in your blood, see it in your cat’s eyes. You want to be free like me and like all the others I have rescued.”

His arms were strong around me, holding me still, keeping me from running if that was my plan. But I wasn’t afraid, I hadn’t decided that running would be the answer. And he didn’t look like he was going to give me time to make that decision.

Behind him the trees shifted, bending with the wind as a helicopter approached. Leaves flew through the air, vines and other debris slapping painfully against my face.

“Come with me, I will let you be free!” Sabar yelled over the roar of the helicopter.

I opened my mouth to speak but something flew inside, choking me. I coughed and tried to dislodge it from my throat until tears pricked my eyes, but it didn’t budge. Sabar laughed then, still holding me in his arms and staring right into my eyes. “You can only be free with me, Lidia. You can only be who you want to be with me!”

I coughed more, choked until my throat felt raw, cried because the pain in my chest was hot and throbbing. And then I woke up.

And Brayden’s arms were already wrapped around me. I was sitting in his lap and he was rocking me back and forth, whispering into my ear.

“I got you, baby. You’re safe right here with me.” He kissed my ear, my cheek, and continued to rock. “I won’t let Sabar touch you, not ever, baby. Stay with me, Lidia, my companheiro, stay with me.”

He knew what I’d dreamed, knew the fear that pulsed in my blood with every breath I took. Nobody else knew that but Brayden.

I buried my head in his bare chest, let the warmth of his arms encircle me, cocoon me. This was what was missing with Daniel and with any other guy I’d been with. I never truly felt safe, like all my faults and some that weren’t even mine, were completely accepted and understood. There was no comfort in that I could be myself totally and not have someone looking at me like I really didn’t belong. For as much as I wanted to blend in with the humans, to take a step away from the tribe that had somewhat embraced me and simultaneously turned their back on me, I would never be a real human.

Brayden knew that and had tried to tell me so.

“I am not like him,” I whispered against his chest, my palms loving the feel of his bare skin beneath them. “I don’t want the freedom he offers.”

I could admit that to Brayden because I knew he believed me without any doubts at all.

“You are not like him at all. In fact,” Brayden said, brushing hair out of my face. “You’re much stronger than he is. You’re a fantastic fighter and you’re smart, you know things about the human race that Sabar will never allow himself to see. He can’t touch you as long as you don’t allow it.”

I nodded, knowing Brayden’s words to be true and loving him more now in this moment for saying them.

“I dreamed of him every night this summer. I’d wake up sweating and breathing like I’d just run a marathon because I’d been trying to get away from him,” I admitted.

“And I wasn’t there,” Brayden replied. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

I shook my head. “You used to call me at night to wake me up and you’d tell me it was alright to go back to sleep because I was on the right side and I wasn’t like Sabar. You didn’t even call.”

“No,” he admitted. “I didn’t.”

There was silence and I knew I’d made Brayden feel bad even though that hadn’t been my intention. By mid-July I’d all but stopped cursing him for not being my crutch. I still missed him and the comfort terribly, but I’d figured eventually he’d move on and so would I. But was that what I really wanted?

“It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t need it. I should be able to get through it on my own. I know he can’t touch me if I don’t allow him to.”

“Nobody can touch you,” he said. “You’re a fighter, Lidia.”

“I’m an outcast,” I admitted. The words were exactly what I’d felt all my life. I wasn’t on either side, never had been really, and now everyone would know.

“No,” Brayden insisted, reaching down to grab my chin. He pushed until I was sitting up, looking at him through eyes that were becoming blurry. Dammit!

I did not cry about this, not about my situation or the things I could not change. It was a pointless and weak emotion that I’d never wanted to have. Ever.

“You are not an outsider. You are one of us and a very valuable part of our team.”

He was talking about Team Sanchez, which consisted of his brothers and me as the lone female shifter. We’d given ourselves this name when we were in Africa and had faced a group of Croesteriia shifters. There were a dozen of them, coming at us from all angles as we hadn’t really been paying much attention, just exploring the jungle there. It had been a miraculous victory, one that I still wondered about. But Brayden had said they’d faltered because no one could defeat Team Sanchez. He’d included me then just as he was including me now. I just didn’t believe it.

“I’m not a part of your family,” I said slowly. “I’m the kid your parents felt sorry for and took along with them so the tribe wouldn’t totally cast me out.”

Brayden frowned. His dark hair was rumpled, his cheeks lightly dusted with the morning’s growth.

“My mom would shake you if she heard you say that,” he told me.

I almost smiled. Marta Sanchez was a force to be reckoned with, there was no doubt. Even with her short stature—five feet even—she packed a powerful punch in human form and when completed shifted she was as vicious and deadly as any of the rest of them.

“But she’d know I was speaking the truth. They didn’t even want you to come with me out here, Brayden. They knew all along I was a crapshoot. Now that I’m an adult I can be responsible for myself so they willingly let me go.”

“That’s not true,” he argued.

“It is true, Brayden, and you know it.” I sighed, touching a hand to his wrist. “You can’t protect me from everything and everyone. I know how people feel about me. I’m not stupid.”

“You are stupid,” Brayden replied in a tone I didn’t appreciate. “You’re stupid if you believe for one moment that I was going to let my parents tell me not to come with you or that I would ever walk away from you because of the mistakes made by your family. I’m never going to walk away from you, Lidia. I’m never going to leave you, so you might as well get used to that fact.”

I tried to turn my head away because his words were so intense, so honest they made my chest hurt. Those tears that had been shimmering at the brim of my eyes were going to fall. I could tell because my vision became blurry, my bottom lip shaking like I was a damned ninny.

Brayden cupped my face then, holding me still because he no doubt knew what I’d planned to do.

“I told you before, Lidia, you are a part of me. An integral part that if torn away would leave me for dead. You are my soul, my heart, my air.”

My mouth opened as I gasped, tears spilling from my eyes onto his hands. He lowered his forehead to mine and I blinked, trying desperately to clear the lump stuck in my throat that prevented me from speaking.

“You are a part of me,” he whispered once more. “Do you understand?”

I nodded because there was nothing else I could do. I knew exactly what he was saying and believed it because it was the same way I felt about him, the same fierce connection that I’d known would never be severed.

“You are a part of me,” I finally managed before his lips touched mine.

CHAPTER 12

Brayden

I wouldn’t leave her.

They weren’t just words I’d whispered to calm her in the aftermath of the worst nightmares I’d ever seen her have. It wasn’t a lie. I would walk away from the life I’d always wanted for her, because without Lidia I didn’t want to live.

I didn’t want to breathe or to even wonder what the next day would bring. I’d heard that finding a companheiro was an amazing and life-changing feat for a shifter, but I had no idea it would be this way. Maybe because I figured I’d always known that Lidia was my companheiro. It had been so easy with her, ever since the beginning, so natural. Our lives would be simple, fully entrenched in the Assembly and our future would be secure as shifters. I’d never thought about our future as a couple.

“Looks like you’re pretty deep in thought there.”

The male voice coming from a room I thought I was in alone was more than a little unnerving. But I didn’t jump, barely even flinched as I looked right up into the stony eyes of Jace Maybon, Pacific Faction Leader and owner of this house—who was supposed to be out of the country.

I stood immediately, tucking my shoulders back and keeping eye contact with the leader. The fact that I was definitely trespassing in his house was a problem and reason enough for him to kill me where I stood. But I’d at least face him with the pride and strength of a soldier and a man.

“I’m Brayden Sanchez, Leader Maybon. My brothers and I are in the upcoming class of finalists,” I said, extending my hand to him.

I’d been sitting in his living room, staring out the patio doors to the ocean that Lidia loved so much while she’d been in the shower. Giving her space had seemed like a good idea and now I was even more grateful that I had. Having Jace catch us coming out of the shower would have been more embarrassing than this already was.

Jace removed a hand from his pants pocket, gripping mine as he continued to stare solidly at me.

“Why are you here instead of on the East Coast training with Rome?”

“We had a problem and had to get away soon,” I began, then proceeded to run down the events that had taken place.

“Why didn’t you call me when it happened? Why didn’t you report the exposure immediately?”

Good questions, I thought, and probably the course of action I should have taken. But I hadn’t and the reason for that fear was burning a hole in the center of my chest right at this moment.

“She’s not a rogue,” I told Jace. “Lidia Morales is not like her uncle Sabar. What happened in Pacifica had nothing to do with rogues,” I said emphatically. It was what Lidia believed and what I had been too good of a brother to mention, and what I knew the Faction Leader was thinking as he continued to study me.

“She’s your companheiro,” he said slowly, matter-of-factly.

I nodded. “Yes, she is.”

“And you want to protect her. You want to keep her from being judged and convicted based solely on a set of circumstances she had no control over.”

He was absolutely right but something about his tone kept me quiet.

Jace moved to the bar on the other side of the room. I watched him retrieve a glass from a shelf on the wall behind him, then reach into the refrigerator to pull out a bottle of water. After opening it he poured it into a glass and took a couple of swallows before flattening his palms on the bar’s surface and leveling me with another gaze.

I still stood at attention in the spot where he’d left me, still looked up to him as the leader he was, but for the life of me couldn’t figure out how this was going to play out.

“The first thing you should have learned about being a Stateside Shadow Shifter was that we have integrity. That in addition to being loyal to our race we’re also very aware that we live in a different time and place than the Elders who previously dictated our laws. We honor and protect our women, similar to the way you’re standing here ready to fight me, a Faction Leader, to the death if I even think about coming down on Lidia Morales. We do that with pride and with dignity, we do not hide and hope for the best. You should have contacted me immediately as this all went down in my zone, which means I have to answer to the other FLs and the Assembly for this situation.”

All I could do was nod at the validity of his words. I’d messed up. In all that I thought I was so ready to become a shifter guard, I’d probably just flunked one of the most basic of tests. But I wouldn’t apologize for what I’d done. In fact, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

I was the only one there watching as they attacked us and I’d dispatched the humans as best I could without too much bloodshed. Only I saw the fear on Lidia’s face when she looked down at the one I’d killed and felt not one inch of remorse, or when Kyra jumped out the window and Lidia had wanted to breathe a sigh of relief but couldn’t because it might mean she was truly connected to Sabar Travers.

I hated that look on her face, hated how it made me feel and how the conflict in her still raged. So my gut instinct was to run and to think of the rest later. It was what I believed was the best plan, no matter what the FL thought.

“You’re right,” was what I managed to say as the only concession I planned to make in this regard. “And my plan was always to tell you and the Assembly what happened. Just not this soon.”

Jace was quiet as he took another sip of water. When the glass and the bottle were empty he leaned his head to one direction and then the next, soliciting a loud cracking of bones with the motion.

“You were also right,” Jace added finally. “Lidia Morales is not a rogue. However, the humans that broke into your apartment were sent there by one.”

I took a step toward him then.

“What are you talking about?”

“Sabar is actively recruiting. He’s hitting high schools and college campuses in an effort to get his recruits before they’ve had a chance to take the finals and become full-fledged guards. He singled you out.”

“Why me?” I asked.

“Because of me,” Lidia answered from behind.

She had apparently finished with her shower, her hair in a damp ponytail, her white shorts barely passing her upper thighs, and her light blue T-shirt hugging the rounds of her breasts.

“He thought if he could recruit Brayden, I’d follow because Brayden and I are companheiros.”

It was the first time I’d heard her admit it, the first time she’d actually said the word that bonded us as surely as the feelings we’d both finally admitted to.

“Smart and pretty,” Jace said, coming from around the bar, passing me until he stood directly in front of Lidia. “You’re not what I imagined when I heard about you.”

“I’m not what everyone in the tribe would like to believe I am,” she said, her chin up, voice just a notch away from being fully offended.

She’d struggled with this all her life, tried her damnedest to be the female she wanted to be instead of the one they all thought she would eventually become. I watched her train while simultaneously embracing all that she could about the human world, taking the human tutoring much more seriously than Caleb or I ever had. In that way Lidia was a lot like Aidan, as they’d both wanted desperately to get away from the shifter world as they became adults. Unlike Aidan, whose rebellion was rooted in his own conflicts, Lidia had carried on her shoulders the conflicts of an uncle she’d barely known.

“It has never been my intention to go against the Shadows. I only wanted to have some semblance of a normal life on my own. That’s why I pushed so hard to come here to go to school. It’s my fault that Brayden followed me and my fault that Sabar targeted him.” She paused, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. “So I’m willing to do whatever is necessary to stop Sabar from this reckless crusade, whatever it takes to get the ugly stain of his betrayal off my family’s name and memory forever.”

No. I wanted to yell the word but it didn’t come out. All I could do was stare at her, at the female that I thought I knew so well. A few minutes ago I’d been ready to walk away from the Assembly, from all that I’d thought I’d wanted out of life so that I could live the normal human life she wanted, so that I could live happily with her forever. Now, if I’d heard her correctly, she was standing here, committing to working alongside the Assembly in their fight against Sabar. I was speechless.

“You may have to face him,” Jace told her.

“No,” I immediately interrupted. “That bastard comes within a hundred miles of her and I’ll break his neck!”

“He comes near her we all take him out and the rogues cease to exist,” Jace said, noticeably calmer than I was. “But before that becomes an issue, we have to go back and deal with things in Pacifica.”

“No!” Lidia all but yelled. “They’ll arrest Brayden for killing that guy.”

Earlier this morning I’d seen Lidia cry for the first time, it had all but ripped my heart right out of my chest. Now, standing here just after hearing her accept what we are to each other, the scent of fear covering her like a blanket, my cat wanted to break free and kill again, to do anything to keep whatever was scaring her at bay.

“It’s okay,” I said, taking a step forward and touching a hand to her shoulder. It was instant heat, radiating up my arm and throughout my body.

The way she turned to stare at me confirmed she felt it too. Jace’s eye roll and audible sigh indicated that even he was aware of the strong connection between us.

“I don’t know how any of us are expected to survive around mated couples. You two reek of the calor,” he said with mild irritation.

When I opened my mouth to speak next, Jace held up a finger to stop me.

“When my assistant called to tell me you were here …” He paused, giving us a smirk. “She knew the moment you walked inside. FYI, there are cameras all over in here.”

Lidia immediately looked at me, her cheeks going red as I took a protective step closer to her. Not that I wasn’t embarrassed, especially if those cameras had caught everything that went on in that bedroom last night, but I wanted her to know that just as I’d told her before, I wouldn’t leave her.

“Infrared readings tipped her off that you were shifters, in the midst of the companheiro calor, instead of just trespassing humans,” he said with an arching of his eyebrows that put me a little more at ease, but had Lidia looking away from Jace once more.

“She ran your pictures through the shifter database Xavier Markland is designing and came up with an instant match since you’re both listed to take the finals next year. Once she had your names, she ran them through all human databases, local and abroad and the APB on Brayden instantly came up.”

“So they’re already looking for me?” I asked.

“And Nick Delgado is already communicating with one of the shifter attorneys here in California to see how we can get you out of this. They have absolutely no proof except that all this happened in an apartment that you were renting. From what we can tell so far, there are no witnesses.”

“What about the other two that were there?” Lidia asked. “He didn’t kill those two?”

Jace looked perplexed. “Yes, you mentioned there were others. My assistant didn’t say anything about any witnesses or anyone else being hurt. She only mentioned the girl that jumped out of the window.”

“What? Wait a minute,” I said, trying to keep all that Jace was throwing at us straight in my head. “Kyra was the female. After she came inside, I remember I didn’t get a chance to close the door because I wanted to make sure she didn’t get into anything physical with Lidia.”

“Which wasn’t necessary,” Lidia chimed in. “I’d handled her before, I could certainly have done so again.”

I gave her a frown and when I turned my attention back to Jace it was to see him not doing a good job of hiding his amusement.

“That’s why I didn’t shut the door in any case, and a few seconds later three guys walked in. They were all dressed in black, two carrying guns.” The memory of the gun pointing at Lidia’s head came flashing back into my mind and anger flared fresh. “I broke the one guy’s wrist and the other I knocked out cold.”

“The other one I was handling before Brayden took over,” Lidia added once more, folding her arms over her chest as if that act alone would make us take her words and I guess her participation in the event more seriously.

“He’s the one I killed,” I told Jace, who looked at me as if he knew exactly why I’d had to kill the guy.

Jace nodded and frowned slightly. “Just sit tight for tonight. Let me give Nick a call and see if we can get a copy of the police report. I think it’s better that we appear proactive in the matter.”

To keep from looking guilty, I figured. I’d never heard of a shifter going on trial in a human court for murder and didn’t like that I might be the first. But the tangy scent of Lidia’s fear had me squashing those thoughts and instead reaching for her hand.

“Why don’t we go for a ride,” I offered.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Jace added. “Go out and get some air. Try not to think about this too much. We’re going to take care of it,” he said, looking first at me then to Lidia. “So don’t worry.”

“Thanks,” I said, giving Jace a nod instead of my hand because Lidia had already laced her fingers through mine.

“Yes,” she said simply. “Thank you, Leader Maybon.”

“Call me Jace,” he told her with a smile. “And don’t go too far or stay out in the open too long. I don’t want you getting picked up by the cops.”

“Right,” I said tightly, pulling Lidia from the room because I didn’t want her hearing any more about me possibly being arrested.

CHAPTER 13

Lidia

The ride with Brayden hadn’t gone very well. He wanted to talk and I really didn’t feel like it. Big things had happened, and I was still trying to process them. So he’d driven around for about an hour before we ended up back at the house. Then he’d sat in front of the big-screened television in Jace’s living room while I played a game on the computer, neither of us speaking, but something definitely brewing between us.

I knew what my problem was but wasn’t clear on Brayden’s. To be honest, I wanted to be self-absorbed in my misery because in my way of seeing things, Brayden Sanchez was getting what he’d already wanted. Unless of course, he was arrested and tried for murder, then convicted and sent to a human jail for the rest of his life.

That thought had me dropping my head as I sat on the side of the bed. It was dark outside, probably after nine since it had been eight-thirty when we’d finished the pizza Jace had ordered for us and I came upstairs instead of watching another one of the Fast and Furious movies that Jace and Brayden seemed so interested in.

I couldn’t sleep, or rather didn’t want to lie down and close my eyes because morning would inevitably come and with it the possibility that Brayden would be taken away. In all the time I’d thought of walking away from him because of the growing attraction between us I don’t think I’d ever really considered how that would feel. Well, now I had no choice and I didn’t like it at all.

Running my fingers through my hair I breathed in and out deeply, hating the sting of tears once again. Squeezing my eyes shut, I cursed. “You are not doing this again, Morales, no freakin’ way,” I warned.

I stood up then, walking to the window without looking out then turning back to pace over to the bed. I felt just like Brayden doing this. Back and forth I went, trying to quiet my thumping heart, hating the panic forming a huge ball in my throat.

He’d killed that guy because he’d been threatening me. I knew the moment Brayden shifted into the cat what the outcome would be. The other two lives he’d spared, but this one he hadn’t hesitated and I felt like crap because now that act might take him away from me forever. While Jace didn’t seem to think there was mention of anyone else being in Brayden’s apartment, I was sure there were. I’d been there and dead bodies don’t just disappear.

My hands shook, my knees wobbling as I moved back and forth. Brayden would go to jail because of me. He’d be a criminal because of me. I stopped in front of the window this time, watching the rise and fall of the waves on the beach. I loved the water, even loved the feeling of sand between my toes. Brayden hated that. I smiled at the thought and my entire body warmed.

The cat inside stretched as if saying, “It’s about damned time.”

I was in love with Brayden Sanchez. The thought came as easily as my next breath. If I closed my eyes right now I’d see his face. If I thought about his smile when he was trying to cheer me up, or his laughter when I fell for one of his corny practical jokes, my chest swelled with emotion. Remembering the nights he’d held me through my nightmares, whispered soothing words in my ear, or simply supported me through the mess that was my life, I felt the need to reach out and hug him tight. And if I thought about the way he kissed me, the way he touched places on my body I hadn’t known were places of pleasure, my breasts would tingle, my center throb and ache.

I loved Brayden and I wanted him, even if it meant living in the Shadow Shifter world with him. Because living without him was not a possibility, it was that simple.

On that note I left the room, heading down the stairs to the living room where I knew he was still parked in front of the television. I was a little surprised to see that Jace wasn’t there. On the walk down the steps I’d thought of what I would say to get Brayden away from Jace without the Faction Leader knowing exactly why. Even though, like he’d informed us, there were cameras all over this house so there wasn’t much he didn’t already know about me and Brayden anyway.

“Take a swim with me,” I said the moment I entered the room and went to stand in front of him, hopefully blocking his view of the television.

He didn’t speak at first, which made me feel a little nervous. What if he was done with me and my psycho nightmare drama? What if what I’d hoped he would do these last few months—leave me alone—was finally coming true?

“Bray,” I called his name again, unclasping my hands and letting them fall to my sides. “Please.”

He looked at me then, just stared for a few seconds, before finally standing up and closing the distance between us. I thought about taking a step back when he didn’t seem like he would stop before colliding into me, but I remained still. We were maybe a breath apart when he lifted his hands, letting his palms run down the sides of my head, his fingers pushing through my hair until the ponytail holder broke free and my hair fell down my back.

“I would do anything for you,” he whispered. “Anything.”

* * *

Brayden was true to his word. We walked along the beach, hand in hand, until finally I had the guts to pull away. I walked backward toward the water, lifting the hem of my shirt as I moved.

“You really want to go for a swim,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifted in a smile.

“I really do,” was my response. My shirt fell to the sand and I reached behind my back to unhook my bra. Brayden’s gaze immediately lowered.

There was a rush of power and my shoulders shook slightly, my nipples tingled beneath the breeze. He liked what he saw and that made me feel more feminine than I’d ever managed my entire life. A smooth sensation, kind of like a waterfall, rippled down my spine and my skin felt sensitized, the breeze brushing against me, causing the slightest prickle of pain.

“Then I guess I have no choice but to join you,” he said, pulling his shirt up and over his head quickly.

My mouth watered at the sight, rock-hard abs, rippled and sculpted like he should be on the cover of one of those workout magazines. His dark skin had a slight glow in the moonlight. When his hands went to the rim of his sweatpants, mine went to the button of my shorts. Our gazes locked and we worked in synchronicity, pushing the garments—bottoms and underwear—down our thighs, stepping out of them slowly. I wore flip-flops so they came off with my shorts and panties. Brayden wore tennis shoes but he knelt quickly, untying them and toeing them off.

When he stood again he was gloriously naked. I wanted to touch him and I desperately needed him to touch me, so I lifted my arms, welcoming him.

“You are beautiful,” Brayden said when he was close enough to spread his fingers around my waist.

“You are my companheiro,” was my reply. Putting my hands to his shoulders, grasping his strength, feeling the warmth of his skin. “You have been my best friend all my life, you’ve been my champion, my greatest supporter. I love you.”

The words just slipped out, feeling as natural as the waves rolling against the shore, now lapping against our feet.

His hands were in my hair once again, the blunt tips of his fingers raking over my scalp. He pulled me closer until my breasts pressed against his chest.

“I feel like I’ve loved you forever.” His words were punctuated by the fierce touch of his lips to mine, the deep thrust of his tongue into my mouth.

From there it was like a frenzy of movements and emotions. Brayden broke the kiss, lifting me into his arms and carrying me deeper into the water. I kept my legs clasped around his waist, my arms around his neck, my lips on his. The coolness of the water did nothing to still the heat burning against my skin, or the cat raking its claws against my spine, displaying its desperate need.

As if he knew, Brayden’s hands went to my back, moving up and down. I’d never heard of this, never learned much about the mating and joining of shifters because I never wanted it to happen to me. But his simple touch calmed the cat inside, it slaked the vicious need, replacing it with sensuous hunger.

“There, baby. I’ve got you,” Brayden whispered in my ear. “I’m going to give you what you need.”

I didn’t know if he was saying that to me or to the cat and damn, I just didn’t care. His hands had moved from my back down to my ass, gripping tightly until I gasped with the sting of pleasure and pain.

“Right there, Lidia. Right there, sweetness.”

I heard his words and guided my hips until I felt the pressure of his engorged tip. Brayden pushed my bottom and thrust deeply until he was planted firmly inside of me. We both shouted with the connection, our voices lost in the roar of the waves.

“I love you, Brayden,” I said, my back arching so that it felt like he was going even deeper inside of me. “I love you and I don’t want to lose you.”

“Never,” he said, keeping his grip on my waist, thrusting his hips in and out. “You’re never going to lose me, sweetness. Never.”

I believed him because I needed to, I had to. Now that I’d decided that my place was with Brayden, the thought of losing him was not a possibility. I’d wanted it all, wanted the most happiness that I could find and here it was. It had been standing right beside me all along.

CHAPTER 14

Brayden

“Coroner ruled the death of Kyra Hopkins a suicide. There was no one else found in the apartment, dead or alive,” Jace told us as we sat in the hotel room he’d obtained for us in Pacifica.

Beside me Lidia reached for my hand. I took hers, squeezing tightly to assure her that everything was going to work out. Even though I wasn’t sure I was going to like what Jace was about to say.

“The police want a statement from you,” he continued. “Your statement needs to be that you broke up with Hopkins two weeks ago. She confronted Lidia, warning her away from you following the breakup but you had no other contact with her. You were not at home the night of the suicide, hence the mess found in your apartment. You were at my place in Malibu supervising the construction.”

Lidia tensed beside me and I shook my head even though I knew it wasn’t what Jace wanted to see from me. I was supposed to be strong and decisive and committed to our tribe. I’d been trained to be just that type of shifter. Although Aidan was the oldest, he’d always taken his duties lightly, never really pushing as hard as he could to be the very best shifter. I suspect because he wasn’t sure that’s what he wanted to be, kind of like Lidia. But me, I always knew, always wanted to do what was expected of me.

Now, not so much.

“You want me to lie to the police?” I asked Jace.

The FL had been leaning against a desk, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his chest. He’d looked somber and no-nonsense, as if he expected me to simply go along with everything he’d said.

“No,” he said bluntly. “I want you to go into that police station and tell them that Sabar had a group of rogues on your and Lidia’s tail for the past eight months. That his plan was to use you to get Lidia to come to him. Kyra Hopkins, a human, somehow got mixed up with rogues and they used her to get to you. Lidia would do anything for you, and Sabar was playing on her weakness, something he makes a habit of doing with young, less-experienced shifters.”

Jace released his arms, planting his hands on the desk and continued to stare at me. “So you can go to the police station and tell them you were there, that you killed a rogue and injured two others. You can tell them that you were going to kill Kyra but she beat you to the punch. And then you can sit in a human jail or insane asylum until they figure out what to do with you, or until your cat gets fed up with the containment and breaks free, exposing you to even more humans and possibly death.” Jace shrugged. “It’s your choice.”

I didn’t know what to say, and if I had any ideas, I wasn’t sure how to convey them. Lidia spoke first.

“He’ll tell them exactly what you said, Jace. I was with him in Malibu when Kyra jumped out of that window.”

She spoke so strongly, so concisely, I almost believed what she’d said was true.

At the same time I felt like I might be watching all my ideals and dreams fly out the window just as Kyra had. Was this really what I wanted? Was this the type of shifter I wanted to be?

“You cannot fight the battle if you’re locked up, Brayden. You killed a rogue, not a human. And Kyra killed herself. This is what we do,” she said, using a finger against my chin to turn my face to hers. “This is what we do,” she repeated.

We. I loved the sound of that, loved the total connection we felt now and the scent that wafted through the air when we were together. She was my other half, she was part of me. That fact was undeniable. I’d thought this was where I wanted us to be in life, but I think there was a part of me that never really thought it would be. How to act now that it was, didn’t come as easily as I’d thought it would.

Lidia touched my face and she smiled. “This is what we do.”

I shook my head. “It’s not what I do.”

Jace stood. He didn’t speak for the seconds after I did and neither did Lidia. I released her hand and stood as well.

“My parents traveled the world, counseling different tribes on keeping the peace, on protecting the humans from those of us who thought to rule the world. Shadow Shifter guards are to protect the humans against the rogues. We are not authorized to kill just for the sake of doing so,” I said.

“Is that what you did?” Jace asked.

I couldn’t see his face because I’d walked over to the window, looking out at the fading daylight.

“Did you just walk into your own living room and kill the man that had come there supposedly to rob you?” the FL continued. “Or did you protect your mate from a rogue that was about to kill her? The other two rogues were disarmed, not killed.’

“But I was going to kill the girl.” This was the first time I’d said these words, the first time I’d vocalized something that had been nagging at me since it happened.

I made the decision to shift into the cat when I knew Kyra was in the room. I knew she would see me and I didn’t care. I killed right in front of her and Lidia and didn’t think twice about it. And when I realized what had happened because of my instincts, I decided to kill Kyra, a human.

A lump, like a heated rock of guilt sat in the pit of my stomach and I wanted to crumple beneath the pain. I wanted to roll into a ball and berate myself for being careless, for letting my emotions get the best of me, for putting my personal instincts against the good of the tribe. I didn’t preserve our most cherished law and look where we were now. Hiding out, thinking of a lie to make things better. It wasn’t right, at least not in my mind.

Lidia’s touch was what I felt next. Her hand on my arm. I didn’t look at her, couldn’t. Now that she’d decided to embrace her heritage she was in with Jace full force. I didn’t like disagreeing with her, but I couldn’t change what I felt.

“She set you up, Brayden. Maybe she didn’t know that the setup involved us both, but she knew she was bringing those guys to your house to possibly kidnap you. And you didn’t kill her, she jumped,” she said vehemently.

“I was going to kill her and so were you,” I said. “Is that really how we plan to deal with humans who happen to show up in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

“I know what you’re grappling with, Brayden. It’s a subject that Rome has been discussing with the FLs a lot lately. It’s why we’re working with the Stateside Assembly to come up with new laws to regulate the world we now live in, the times that are now upon us,” Jace said. “The Sanchez brothers, Lidia included, have long been on our radar. All of the FLs know what an asset each of you will be to our team. We know what you’ve been taught and we plan to teach you more, to help you grow into the shifters you want to be. Not that you were meant to be, Brayden, because that ideal came from a time and place that was unbound and unconventional. We need each of you with us, to bring to the table the struggles of your generation, the insights you’ve gained from living with the humans for these past four years. That’s why we, along with your parents, thought it was a good idea for all of you to go out on your own for a while.”

“It makes sense, Bray. What he’s saying makes a lot of sense and you know that’s saying a lot coming from me,” Lidia added.

I didn’t know what to say or what to do. This wasn’t what I’d learned or what I’d been prepared for. To tell the truth, Lidia’s total dedication to the tribe and to me wasn’t either. I’d hoped and dreamed, but I don’t know, there was a part of me that always seemed to doubt. Now what was I supposed to do?

* * *

The next day I walked out of the police station after giving the statement Jace and Lidia told me to give. Across the street in a stone-gray Suburban Lidia, Jace, and his driver were waiting for me. I paused at the top of the steps, taking a deep breath and exhaling it slowly. It had rained last night so the air had a dewy fresh quality that still lingered even at almost ten in the morning. The sky was still overcast, traffic moving up and down the street at its regular pace. All seemed normal.

But that summation would have been wrong.

They came at me from both sides, their stench reaching my nostrils before I actually saw either of them. In seconds they were upon me and my first instinct was to shift, to go at them in cat form and tear their throats out. Instead, I ran down the steps barely missing them. I thought about going across the street, heading right for the truck but I knew they were watching, knew they would see what was happening and act accordingly.

I ran faster than they did. They were sloppy, which I should have surmised from before, the night they walked into my apartment. I hadn’t realized they were rogues then, hadn’t zeroed in on their scent like I did this morning. Now that I knew, the rules to the game were slightly adjusted. I cut down an alley, dodging a Dumpster that I wasn’t anticipating being so close to the opening. Then I crouched down behind that Dumpster and waited.

They ran into the alley, both of them, stinking, dirty bastards. Seconds later there were additional footsteps as the duo continued looking for me.

“We know you’re in here,” one of them yelled.

“Come out so we can get this over with,” a different voice said.

Then there was clicking, the safety coming off a gun. I came out from behind the Dumpster then, facing the two rogues with Jace, Lidia, and Jace’s driver all holding guns behind them.

“Yeah, I’d like to get this over with,” I said to the rogues. “I’ve got other things to do today.”

Before they could lunge, Jace was right up on one of them, holding the gun to his temple.

“Move and die,” he said through clenched teeth.

The driver came up beside the other one and Lidia pushed past both of them to get to me.

“How did you know they would come after you again?” she asked me.

I shrugged. “The job wasn’t finished. As long as they were alive Sabar was going to send them back. Now that they’re in our custody he’ll have to come up with another plan. And by then, I’ll be ready for his sorry ass.”

CHAPTER 15

The Mates

Three weeks later

“I could do this all day,” I said after another lap in the pool.

“And I could get used to watching you do that all day,” Brayden added from the spot where he sat on the side of the pool.

“Or you could come in and join me.”

He slipped into the pool, making his way closer to me. “Every time I get in the water with you, swimming is the last thing we do,” he said.

Moving away from Brayden was still an instantaneous thought in my mind, but I’d been getting good at pushing that thought away and staying still. He reached out to grab me then, his fingers at my waist, his strong arms pulling me up against his muscled body. I went willingly, wrapping my legs around him instantly.

I was expecting his kiss because that’s what usually came at this moment, but not this time. Instead he buried his face in the crook of my neck, holding me almost too tightly for me to breathe.

“Wherever you are is where I want to be, now and forever,” he whispered.

I ran my fingers through his damp hair, resting my cheek against his head. I loved him so much, not just for putting up with all my emotional crap, but for agreeing to stay in California with me while I finished up my teaching degree and accepted the internship at the charter school. And for accepting the job with the Pacific Zone as guard trainees, which would change to official guards, once he returned to the East Coast and took the finals—after we both returned to the East Coast and took the finals.

We were going to be guards together, I was going to teach in the human world, and we were going to be officially joined. I had everything I never realized I wanted and was still amazed to find that so did Brayden.

“Now and forever,” I told him. “Meu companheiro.”

Author’s Note

While writing the Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts trilogy I had plenty of musical inspiration. Below is the playlist that truly personifies the Sanchez brothers and their journey to love. Hope you enjoy!

Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts Playlist

Beautiful, Mariah Carey f/Miguel

Maroon 5, Love Somebody

Stay, Rhianna

When I Was Your Man, Bruno Mars

Unconditionally, Katy Perry

Come and Get It, Selena Gomez

Everything Has Changed, Taylor Swift f/Ed Sheeran

We Remain, Christina Aguilera

Imagine Dragons, Demons