From the Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel) (14 page)

I was too stunned to speak. He had told me that some of what he had done was illegal, but I had not imagined he was bringing his vampire employers victims.

Confessing that apparently opened up the virtual floodgates, and Race proceeded to tell me other things he had done. He’d stolen cars belonging to humans who owed the vampires money. He’d broken into their homes and stolen valuables, or damaged property. He had issued threats on the leeches’ behalf and had even delivered beatings on more than one occasion. His Jeep was in the shop because he’d been surprised by one man’s resourcefulness, and they’d gotten into a high-speed chase that had ended with both vehicles damaged and the other driver in the hospital. He said that if I had been watching the news I’d have heard about it, because the police were still looking for the second driver—him—and car involved.

“Only good fucking thing those leeches ha
ve ever done for me is cover up my mistakes,” Race muttered darkly. “If my mother knew how I made my money she’d fucking disown me, and be right to do it.”

He took a ragged breath and released it, and stared back out the window as he added, “Maybe you shouldn’t bother telling me about the ritual, Jules. You’d probably be better off walking out that door and
getting into your buddy’s car with him and driving as far away from me as you can get.”

I’d started crying as he told me the things he’d done
—I couldn’t help it. And although I was shocked and hurt that he’d committed such horrible acts, the thought of leaving him now, when he clearly needed me to begin his own healing just as I’d needed him to begin mine… The very thought stole my breath away. I couldn’t imagine my life without him, ugly past and all.

Tentatively I reached forward and laid a hand on his back. His muscles twitched at the contact but he didn’t shake me off. Emboldened, I moved forward
and pressed my body to his, wrapping my arms around him tightly. Race reached up and held onto my arms in much the same way as I had held onto him the night before. I wanted to soothe him as he had soothed me, but I could not think of the words. I had no idea what I could possibly say that would make him feel better. Part of me knew that he deserved to feel like so much shit, but a larger part—that part that wanted to see him heal from his pain—ached alongside him. I wanted nothing more than to make that pain go away, to help him begin, in some way, to make up for the mistakes of the past.

But I didn’t know how. Nothing at all came to mind except
…

“I’m not going anywhere, Horace William Covington the Third,
” I said in his ear. “You were chosen for me and I have accepted you, warts and all. You’ve done some horrible things, there’s no denying that. You may even have done some things you can never make up for. But it won’t hurt you to try. And I’m going to be here, right beside you, every step of the way.”

“How can I do it, Jules? How can I even begin to try?”

I moved so that I was sitting next to him. He still refused to look at me so I took his chin in hand and made him. His eyes were red now, and I could tell he was fighting tears. It broke my heart to see such self-loathing in his eyes.

“Walk away, Race. From all of it. Merrick tracking you down was obviously a sign that you can’t just ignore them, not if you’re still living in the same city
as they are. So you leave and start over somewhere else.”

“Where would I go, Juliette?” he asked me, his voice small and pleading.

It hit me all of a sudden just what to do—the thing that was probably the best for both of us. I took his head in my hands and kissed his lips softly, then wrapped my arms around him again and laid my head on his shoulder.

“
We
,” I said resolutely, “are going to go home.”

My declaration seemed to bring new life to Race. After but a moment of silence to absorb the words, he suddenly jumped up, grabbed my head to kiss me, and hurried to put his clothes on.

“Where are your suitcases?” he asked as he was dragging his shirt on.

“Whoa, Race, slow down one second,” I said. “We don’t have to leave right
now
. Besides, we both have obligations here in Cleveland. I’ve got a job I have to quit and you’ve an apartment to deal with.”

He muttered an oath and threw his shoe across the room. Almost as suddenly as his mood had gone sour he brightened. “No problem. M
y lease is up at the end of next month anyway, and I told you I’ve been trying to break things off. I’ll pack up my clothes and everything else and the landlord can have the furniture. Or I’ll put it in storage.”

“Yeah, and that’s going to take time, honey,” I reminded him. “First things first
: After I get dressed I’m gonna get something for us to eat, because I’m hungry again so I know you have to be too. We’ll pack up my clothes and I’ll turn my key in, then we’ll head to your place and pack up some clothes for you. We’ll go to my brother’s place for a while, I know he and Saphrona will more than welcome us. After we take a few days to relax and unwind, we’ll figure out a plan to get back up here and move your things out of your apartment. Sound good to you?”

Race looked into my eyes for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah. Sounds good to me.”

Race dressed quickly in what he had worn to my hotel room, while I relished being able to put on my own clothes: cotton hi-cut panties, a matching cotton bra, blue jeans, and a t-shirt. Race laughed as I was tugging on socks.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, pulling my sneakers on.

“You’re a
weredog that turns into a Siberian Husky, and you’re wearing a t-shirt that says ‘I love Siberian Huskies’ on it. How ironic of you,” he said with a smirk.

I stuck my tongue out at him. “You hush. I happen to like
Sibes, and not just because I am one.”

He shook his head as he turned for the mini-fridge. “If you say so.”

I reached over and smacked him on the ass, at which he looked at me over his shoulder and said, “Ooh, baby, do that again!” with what I determined was his trademark smirk.

“No, I think I’ll keep my hands to myself,” I said tartly. “You would enjoy it too much and we have too much to do to go rolling around in the sheets again… Not that I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed myself.”

I tilted my head to the side as I studied his bent-over behind and he pulled out the last of my bread and lunchmeat and the last slices of cheese. “As a matter of fact,” I went on, my tone more serious, “I really feel like I should thank you.”

He grabbed a couple cans of Coke from the mini and then carried it all over to the table. “Why? I haven’t done anything to really deserve your thanks
—hell, I should be thanking you for not running scared when I told you all the shit I’ve been up to.”

“Race, like I said before: You were chosen for me and I accepted you. What kind of mate
—or for that matter, what kind of person—would I be if I abandoned you on the first test of faith?” I said, reaching for his hand. “I won’t lie to you and say I’m not stunned and horrified by some of the things you’ve done. It saddens me that you felt you had no other options but to commit crimes on behalf of vampires to earn good money.”

Race groaned. “Please don’t remind me. I hate myself for being so fucking weak. I hate myself for every stupid, reckless, illegal thing I’ve ever done. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t feel guilty for hurting those people. That’s not the kind of person I imagined myself to be, or the kind of man my mother raised me to be. And now I hate myself for having put that look in your eyes, the one that says you’re disappointed in me.”

“I am disappointed,” I said truthfully. “But I know there is still good in you. A good man who is hurting from all the guilt, and I cannot wait until the day he is set free.”

“I feel like you’re the only person who can get me there
,” he said hoarsely.

“I don’t know if that’s true, but I know I’m going on the journey with you,” I replied softly. “And I have to thank you because you’re helping me too. Before we met yesterday, getting involved with someone was the furthest thing from my mind. Like I imagine a lot of victims of sexual assault feel, I didn’t even like being touched by a man, not even to shake hands. I really didn’t want anything to do with
men, which is quite a contrast to the fact that I’ve been so looking forward to meeting the man I would imprint on.

“And then I met you again, after all these years, and you turned out to be that man. It’s been only three weeks since I was attacked
, and though the psychic told me I’d be meeting my mate in the next twelve months, I wasn’t expecting it to happen in less than one. And Race, you’ve helped me by making me face what happened to me. For the last few weeks, I’ve been doing everything I could think of to keep myself from remembering. I didn’t want to think about it because that made it easier to pretend that it hadn’t happened at all.”

I drew a steadying breath and Race reached for my hand. I sent a weak smile his way as I exhaled. “Truthfully, I’d
kinda like to go back to that, to pretending it didn’t happen. But I know that’s foolish. Ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away, and I don’t know how much longer I could have kept it up anyway. This crap ‘I’m fine’ charade takes an awful lot of energy. And it’s not like I’m ever going to be able to forget what happened, so I have no choice, really, but to deal with it. Better now than later, I suppose.”

Race gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “And I swear I’m going to do whatever is in my power to do to help you, Juliette. You have my word on that.”

The smile that came to me then was stronger than the last, and I returned the hand squeeze. “That works both ways, Race,” I told him. “You have my word that after a little R and R on Mark and Saphrona’s farm, I’m going to do whatever I can to help you get out from under the fang of the Cleveland vampires. I want you away from that life and onto a better one.”

His reply was at first just a solemn nod.
Then Race looked at me and said, “You’re already making my life better just by sticking with a loser like me. Something else I’m gonna do, or rather not do, is ever give you a reason to regret that choice.”

I refrained from replying that I really didn’t have much choice—our bond would draw us together like magnets whether we wanted to be together or not. No shifter I had ever known had tried to fight their imprint, though I supposed it could be assumed that a shifter who’d imprinted on a human would have an easier time of it. With Race and I both being shifters, denying the connection between us was like
ly to be impossible.

We finished the rest of
our simple meal in silence. It occurred to me then that he and I had done an awful lot of talking, and we’d been reunited less than a day. So many words had been exchanged, and declarations made, that I felt emotionally exhausted. Though I also realized I had once again escaped having to explain the mating ritual and knew that eventually I’d have to tell him, I was done with talking—I just wanted to enjoy being with the man I was already falling hard for. Despite the passing of sixteen years, despite the horrible things he’d done and the horrible things I had recently endured, I could tell that the seeds of love had been planted. I had loved Race Covington once, as much as a young girl with a crush can love an older boy, and I would love him again.

After the sandwiches were gone,
Race packed what food I had left as I packed my clothes. We made the bed together and then I checked the bathroom to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything behind. Then I looked around the room that I had lived in for the last two weeks and I knew that I wouldn’t miss it. It had been a place of refuge for me but Lochlan was right—it wasn’t home.

Race picked up my two duffel bags and I grabbed the food, and we headed out the door. I locked it behind me and then glanced around the parking lot, spotting
Lochlan’s black Escalade on the far side in front of the rental office. I headed toward it with Race at my side, and when I came abreast of the driver’s side door, I noticed the window was rolled down about an inch, and even as I was raising my hand to knock, it rolled down further.

“Lochlan, what are you still doing up?” I asked?

He glanced toward me, his face an unreadable mask. I knew instantly that something was bothering him, but the cause of his distress eluded me. I would have liked to ask what was wrong, but instinct told me he’d not want to have that discussion—even if he were willing to talk about it—in front of Race.

Only a second or two had passed while I had these thoughts, as the mask was replaced by his usual grin almost as soon as I’d noticed it.
“Why Juliette, surely you’ve heard the expression ‘I couldn’t sleep’ a time or two in your young life.”

I raised my eyebrow at him and he chuckled. “Truthfully, my dear, I had trouble falling to sleep—and believe me, I find it very strange to say. My mind is rather occupied with far too much to settle down.”

He glanced over my shoulder at Race, then looked back at me with his own eyebrows raised. “Going somewhere?”

I took a breath. “Yes, actually,” I said. “Race and I are going home.”

Lochlan frowned, then his face lit up with an expression of hope. “Home? As in
home
home?”