Hunger for You (Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts) (13 page)

I remembered it all.

The day I’d met Dex Tavares I’d been awestruck by his good looks and easy conversation. He’d made me laugh a time or two and I figured, why not? After a few dates that question had been answered for me but I’d been either too blind, or too desperate to grasp my own little bit of happiness to realize it. The signs had all been there—the quick temper, the jealousy, the constant
need to control me and everything else around him, including those goofs he called friends. I should have known he wasn’t good for me.

And then Caleb had come along and I hadn’t known what to think about him either. I’d wanted to keep my distance but had known that wasn’t going to be possible as something continuously pulled us together.

Two guys that were very different from others I’d met. And yet, I’d always felt like there was something about them that was also the same. A look that each of them had gotten at separate times, of course, but then again that night in the alley, they’d looked at each other like they knew something I didn’t. Like they were anticipating something that I couldn’t understand.

Now, I did.

A week after I left the hospital alone there was a knock on my door. I’d been packing, planning to take the money I’d been saving for college tuition and move. I wanted, no, I needed a fresh start and I’d decided not to think too long and hard about it, but to just do it. So I opened the door, not expecting anyone, since Hanna and I hadn’t really talked much since that morning at her apartment. She blamed me for getting her involved in my “drama-filled love triangle” and I blamed her for running her mouth to Dex about Caleb and then for calling Dex’s boys to—
in her words again—“take care of Caleb.” Another friendship or connection cut. It was beginning to be the story of my life so I wasn’t overly surprised or emotional about it.

When I opened the door I was at first a little stunned by the gorgeous female standing in my doorway, then as she lifted a hand to push her hair behind her ears I was captured by the bracelet on her right arm. It looked just like the one I’d seen on Caleb’s dresser. I’d squared my shoulders and prepared myself for the altercation. Caleb obviously had a girlfriend—which would explain why I hadn’t seen or heard from him in days—and she was now here to tell me to stay away from her man.

Same drama, different day I thought, when I asked her what she wanted.

She introduced herself as Lidia Morales and asked to come in. I shrugged and moved away from the door, just wanting to get this over with.

“First, let me say, you’re exactly what Caleb needs,” Lidia had said and I’d stopped throwing stuff into the duffle bag and turned to stare at her.

“What did you say?”

The rest of the afternoon had been filled with Lidia telling me about her brother, Caleb, and the tragic demise of his biological parents. So that explained his bitterness and his
aloofness, and the gentleness of the man tortured by his past. I certainly knew that tune.

“He could have told me that himself. He could have just been honest with me. I told him about my past,” I’d said to her.

She’d only shaken her head. “There’s so much more to him, to his story than that. They weren’t sure you should know, figured maybe we should just let all this die down, but I knew. I knew once Brayden told me what had happened, who you were to him and how important it was for you to know and to understand.”

Everything she’d said had seemed cryptic, like there was more meaning to each word that I just wasn’t catching on to. It reminded me again of things I’d heard over the past weeks like “half-breed” and “shadows.” And then when I’d confessed to Caleb that I liked that he was different and his reply had been, “You have no idea,” I’d thought there was more but hadn’t known what. Blame this overactive imagination on the romance novels and the ability I had to be taken swiftly into another world, into another mind, to other emotions and … and it left me with what? More questions.

“What are you talking about? Why don’t you just tell me what you came here to tell me?” I’d said to Lidia.

And she did.

And I didn’t believe it.

I didn’t believe—no matter how many books I’d read, how many worlds I’d ventured into through fiction—that there was another species living among us. She’d left me then, after dumping a gigantic pile of “what the hell” in my lap, she’d just left, giving me a simple card with her name and her cell phone number.

That night I cried for hours, unable to get started on my new life, unable to believe what I’d just heard and swearing not to ever, ever, read another book again. I didn’t want to deal in fiction anymore, didn’t want to believe in happily ever after or to get lost in a world or people that just were not a solid part of this reality. My “flightiness” as my mother had often called my love of books and the unknown, had finally gotten the best of me. I’d balled up that card with Lidia’s number on it and just lay on the floor until morning.

With the new day I’d convinced myself it was time to start over once more and had headed out to do just that, only to find a big black truck sitting in front of the building when I stepped out. I dropped all my bags when two men, fine as hell and built like wrestlers, climbed out of the backseat. They both wore dark shades, one dressed impeccably in a navy-blue suit, while the other was more casual in black jeans and a black button-down shirt that molded perfectly over his bulging muscles. That one I remembered but couldn’t figure out why.

“Zoe Fallon.”

The one in the suit said my name.

I was so stupefied at this point I could only nod.

“I need you to come with us.”

I shook my head this time, vehemently. All books and fiction world aside, I was not getting into a strange black truck with these two big ominous-looking men. Hell no!

Then the one I remembered took off his glasses and stepped up beside me. “We’re not going to hurt you,” he said. “Just come with us.”

I’d heard those words before, at the hospital. This man had been at the hospital with me.

“No. I’m not going,” I insisted. “And if you don’t get out of my way I’m calling the police.”

The other one, the guy that looked really hot in his business suit, took off his glasses to display warm brown eyes. He smiled and I almost swooned, which I’m guessing was the desired effect, then he said as simply as if he were stating the time of day, “If you call the police, you’ll never see Caleb again.”

Against everything I’d convinced myself of the night before, the ban on romance and all that came with it, the hopes that all that girl had said to me was wrong, the hurt of Hanna’s actions, the memory of my mother and her issues, everything,
just slipped away. I heard his name and all the heat and emotion that had been between us that night before the fights and the hospital came rushing back and I couldn’t help it, I replied without hesitation, “Alright.”

***

“What are you doing here?” Caleb asked when he’d finally stopped kissing me.

He’d carried me to the huge house I’d seen only from the beach, through a lower level patio door, where he’d quickly pressed me against the wall and kissed me again.

I loved kissing him, loved the way our lips fit perfectly and our tongues knew the steps to the dance without practice or thought. His hands were everywhere, up my skirt, clenching my back, in my hair, grasping my cheeks. I felt consumed and more than ready for more.

So when he finally pulled away I was a little dazed and giggled to keep what little bit of focus I had left from drifting away.

“I get the feeling you’re not overly upset by my presence,” I replied.

He was looking at me now, his dark eyes glazed with desire and filled with questions. It was my turn to run my fingers through his hair, to push the unruly strands back from his face
and watch with pleasure as they dropped down over his forehead once more.

“I’m not complaining,” he said. “But I don’t understand.”

I nodded. “We might be a little more comfortable talking if we sat down.”

Caleb shook his head immediately. “I’m not letting you go, not this time.”

I’d read those words before, hoped to hear them in real life at some point and was elated that they were coming from this guy at this moment.

“I don’t intend to let you go either.”

He was shocked, I could tell, and it was an emotion he didn’t like. Then again, Caleb wasn’t the talkative or emotional type. I guess I’d have to fill that gap in this relationship. So I moved until he loosened his grip and my feet finally hit the floor. I took his hand and led us over to a huge futon on one side of the wall. The fading light from the outside still illuminated this room as there were no curtains at the patio doors. It looked like a changing room with one wall full of shelves that held towels and other beach items. There was another door which I assumed might be a bathroom, then the futon and two other lounge chairs, all sitting on a black-and-white tiled floor.

We sat and Caleb pulled me close. I entwined our fingers and looked up at him before saying bluntly, “I know what you are.”

“What?”

“I know about the tribes and about your parents.”

His entire body tensed, his eyes growing dark, just before he looked away from me.

It was exactly the reaction I’d expected, the same one Lidia had warned me about. After spending more time with her and the other females of the
Topètenia
tribe in FL’s big house in Virginia, I had a good taste for how their men, or rather, male shifters, responded to emotion and pent-up anger. If it was an outsider dealing with them then they should beware. But I wasn’t an outsider, I’d given up all that I knew to make this trip to Florida, to approach him, this guy, this Shadow Shifter that I was in love with. No way was I going to let his prickly attitude stop me.

“Lidia came to see me about a week after I was released from the hospital. She told me everything and then she just left. I didn’t know how to digest it all and wondered if I should even try. When I finally decided to just walk away, two guys that I originally thought might be from the Mafia or some kind of dangerous crime family came to get me and I really didn’t have a choice but to go with them.”

Caleb turned quickly then, eyes blazing as he glared at me. “Who came to get you? What did they do to you?”

I lifted a hand then, warmth spreading through my chest at what I saw. My fingers, only a shade lighter in complexion than Caleb’s lightly bearded cheek, grazed his cheekbone, then moved up to smooth his thick eyebrows. He blinked and I smiled because the dark brown eyes that I’d always thought were so sad were now golden orbs, a slit of black down their center. He was looking at me with his cat’s eyes and I wasn’t afraid, I was enamored.

“They explained everything to me and they showed me your world, your family,” I said.

“I don’t have a family,” Caleb said, closing his eyes. “My parents are dead.”

“Like I sometimes wish mine were. My stepfather at least.” I cupped his face with both my hands then, waiting until he finally looked at me once more. “But you have so much more than a mother and father. You have an entire tribe willing to stand behind you, to support you, to go against their very beliefs to come and get me because they thought I was the only one who could save you for them.”

“I don’t need saving,” he said, jerking away from me and standing. “I don’t need their interference. I’ll never join them. Never!”

“Because your father despised them once he found out what your mother really was?” I kept talking but didn’t stand to join him. Instead, I gave him the space he felt he needed.

He spun around so fast I did jump, a little, but I kept my hands folded in my lap, my gaze focused on him. There was so much pain, so much anger, his shoulders were rigid with the weight he’d carried all these years.

“No!” he roared. “Because my mother ignored everything she was taught and fell for a man that could never understand, could never be what she needed him to be. His hatred killed her and her love for him cursed me!”

Every part of me ached for him, ached for the loss and the pain that he’d endured. I know I’d had my own tribulations through life, maybe that was why I could so easily accept all that I’d learned in these last weeks, and why I could so completely love this man.

“But I understand, Caleb. I know who and what you are and I understand what your people are and why they are here. You understand those differences too. You’re not like either of them.”

“No, I’m not like anybody and that’s exactly why I don’t belong with them and I don’t … I didn’t think …”

He couldn’t get the words out, but it was okay, after weeks of thought and with the help of Lidia I’d figured out what was
behind Caleb’s sadness and this connection that had been gnawing at me since the first night I’d seen him walk into that bar. It wasn’t my romantic mind, although that kiss on the beach would make for searing pages in any book. A book which I’d buy a hundred copies of just to read over and over again. It was the
companheiro
calor,
the scent of shifter mates. I’d learned all about its intensity and its importance and as I inhaled I thought I could even smell its sweet aroma wafting through the air around us.

“You didn’t think it was right for you to fall for a human like your mother did.” I stood up then, rubbing my hands down the front of my dress. “You didn’t think that it was right to fall for a shifter female either because she would think you were less than her, half of her. You don’t belong because you don’t want to choose where to belong. Is that about right?”

He looked at me this time as if I had two heads, as if he just couldn’t believe I would say these things to him. Well, a couple of weeks, maybe even a year ago, if someone had told me I’d walk away from the independence I’d wanted for so long, that I’d give up my room that was a piece of crap and my job that paid excellent tips but left me almost too tired to actually pursue the college degree that I wanted, to travel to Florida to convince a guy that I’d met only two months ago that I was in love with him and that we were meant to be together, I would
have laughed in their face. No matter how truly romantic it all sounded.