Part of Me (7 page)

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.

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

W
E 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.