Shifting Shadows (Sparks Collide Trilogy) (10 page)

It wasn’t a question but I answered it
anyway. “Yeah...”

He cut me off “And not a human, one of
our kind, I can smell his blood on you. What did he do, breathe in your
direction?”

I winced, the truth wasn’t any better.

My silence turned my father’s face from
furious to stone cold, empty. He spoke. “You missed the meeting,
your
meeting and you were out alone, fighting. You come home smelling of alcohol,
sweat, and someone else’s blood. Did I get everything?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cut the sir, shit, James. We’re done
here.”

He said it and I knew he meant it. He
was truly done with me, forever. My chest closed up and my body felt like it
was on fire. I’d finally done it, I thought detachedly. I’d pushed him too far.

Suddenly I was on my feet. “No, we
can’t be done, let me explain.” He didn’t even look up. I couldn’t get enough
air. “I’m the Alpha. I’m going to be the leader. You need me.”

Gray eyes pierced me. “You are an Alpha
but you are not a leader.”

“What do you mean, that’s the same
thing. The pack needs me with or without your blessing.”

He stood “Alpha is what you were born
as but you only embrace it when it gets you what you want. A leader is the
thing you run away from at every opportunity. A leader is someone who lives,
breathes and dies for the good of all. No one’s going to come to you to tell
you how good their day is going, it’s all complaints, every bit of it and a
leader deals with it when no one else can. They alone have to make the tough
calls. You think because you are an Alpha that you deserve respect but if you
listen to nothing else, hear this, respect is earned. It is your actions every
day that can earn respect and nothing else, not your status and not who your
father is. Your friends like you, James but they don’t respect you because you
don’t respect them or their time. You don’t even respect yourself. I’m sick of
the fighting, the drinking, and the messing around. You are 24 years old, you
have responsibilities and you are throwing it all away because you are as
selfish as anyone I’ve ever met. So no, I do not need you and neither do those
people out there. What they need is a bright future with someone who will put
them first, with or without my blessing, as you call it.”

I sat once again because my legs could
no longer hold my weight. He had never spoken to me like this. I found myself
saying the only thing I could, hoping he would understand. “Mom wouldn’t want
this, dad. She wouldn’t give up on me.”

He exhaled a harsh breath and walked
toward the door. “That is why I allow you stay. You will remain in the pack but
nothing more.”

He paused at the door. “You know, it’s
funny, I had this talk with your uncle yesterday when you weren’t answering my
calls and he was convinced you were turning it all around. This is the first
time, I’ve ever hated that I was right. ” He said and then he left.

I blanched, finally feeling something significant
inside of me. Maybe it was the pain that comes with irrefutable proof that my
own father bet against me. It was too bad that these feelings made me yearn for
the emptiness. How stupid I’d been to want anything else.

I sat there in shock for who knows how
long when Will stepped through the door. I banged my head into the chair behind
me. Why Will, why now? “Look, there’s really not a worse time for you to be
here, so get the hell out.”

“I want to talk to you.” He said as he
sat on the edge of the desk.

“Will” I croaked, hardly getting the
word out. “I’m not…just not now.”

“I know things aren’t right between us
but this needs to be said, if you go out to fight, you need to bring me too.”

Of the freaking things…“I know this is
hard for you to believe, but this is not even close to my priority list right
now.”

“I don’t care. It’s on the top of mine.
I’m not saying you need backup or any of that shit but I want to be there just
in case. I’m not letting you get ambushed or worse. You go, I go. That’s it.”

“You didn’t seem to care all that much
when you went to
Texas
for two and a half years, or since
you’ve been back for that matter. I don’t see why you should care now.” I said,
angrily.

He kicked the desk leg. “Not this,
again, Jay. I did what I had to do. I care because I’m your freaking Beta and
I’m not letting you drown. You want to go nuts so you can feel something, fine
but don’t go alone.”

It unhinged me that somehow he could he
see what my own father couldn’t see. “Well lucky for you, you won’t have to be
my Beta for much longer. You’ll be handed my spot anytime now-“

He cut me off. “Don’t say that, Jay. I
don’t want it and nothing can make me want it.”

I stood and walked to the door,
resigned. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

He got a steely look in his eye. “We’ll
see about that. Wait, Jay…did he even remember?

I turned. “What?” “Did your father
remember what yesterday was?

My voice shook. “He had no effing
clue.” I pushed my forehead onto the doorway, feeling lifeless. My own father
hadn’t remembered the anniversary of my mother’s death.

I’d figured it out when he called
yesterday around
3 p.m.
and left a message about some meetings followed by two more voicemails about
him being angry that I wasn’t answering. None of these messages showed me he
had any clue at all.

Will smoothed his hand over his shaved
head “I’m going to take care of this. In the meantime, you call me, no matter
what. You want to fight, you call me.”

I walked into the hallway “Whatever.
Later.”

I got a late start this morning making
me feel extra grateful that it was a Saturday. It had been storming since I’d
woken up and the pounding rain against my window and roof echoed throughout the
room. I wasn’t overly tired but I was drained and without the sun for motivation,
I couldn’t manage to get myself out of bed until
noon
. When I had, I slunk out into the
kitchen to grab a bowl of cereal.

Christina was there, sitting over a cup
of coffee in her pajamas, her blonde hair sticking out like she too had just
rolled out of bed. We looked at each other and laughed.

“Long night?” she asked

“Not really, I got home before
midnight
. What about you, Cinderella?”

She smiled sheepishly, “I got in around
three. I had the greatest time with Xander last night. By the way, there’s more
coffee in the pot if you want.”

“You’re amazing” I said as I
practically ran to the coffee maker with my favorite colorful mug in hand. “Now
tell me everything about the date.

“Ok” She paused dramatically then dove
in. “He took me to dinner at a really nice place. Gosh, you should’ve seen it,
it was gorgeous. The waiters were snooty and awful but the wine was amazing and
the food, oh gosh the food. Even my salad was mouthwatering and I don’t even
like salad. Then we went dancing. He took me to a Salsa club. It was all steamy
and romantic and it had a live band. Xander wasn’t even good, the kid has two
left feet but he took me anyway. It was so much fun. He brought me back to the apartment
and he kissed me goodnight and I don’t know, it’s so weird but I don’t think I
could feel any better if he asked to stay longer. He didn’t even try to stay
.He kissed me and he left and I’ve been on cloud nine ever since. He’s just so
different from other guys. I think…I think I’m really falling for him.”

My heart melted “Christina, that’s
amazing. I’m so happy for you and if the way he looks at you is any indication,
he’s already head over heals for you too.”

She beamed, “I hope your right. I never
thought I’d be with such a nice guy but he’s funny and interesting and I don’t
know it just feels like everything’s fitting into place. I mean, my mom’s been
married more times than I want to think about. No one ever thought I could be
in a stable relationship but I am. I can’t believe it. Oh gosh, I’m totally
gushing. I’m going to stop now.”

“I don’t mind. I need some happy news.”
“Uh-oh. What happened last night? What’s wrong?” “Well, my mom called yesterday
and it’s hard to explain but there’s some family stuff going on. Bottom line,
she wants me to come home and I just can’t. I won’t.” I sighed “Anyway that
whole conversation just threw me off and then I ran into Jay and he looked
worse off by a long shot. We headed over to Zoomly’s, the theme park place.
Have you heard of it?”

“Oh yeah it’s a childhood staple around
here.” “Right well we went there and everyone came and it was perfect.” The
image of Jay’s purple eyes staring at me, up on the Cliff Diver from what felt
like the top of the world, popped up in my brain. This kept happening and I
tried to shrug it off again before I got off track. “Then it ended entirely too
soon. So we went to this guy Daniel’s apartment for a house party and things
just got out of hand.”

“I heard Daniel was having a party but
that kid is completely certifiable, can’t imagine what his apartment must be
like.”

I blanched “You know him?”

“Yeah, he’s been in this town for as
long as I can remember. He’s involved in some pretty shade stuff.”

My stomach dropped. “What do you mean?”
“His family is the creepy religious fanatic kind and not for any kind of
religion a sane person would want to be involved in. You see, stepfather
number…three, I think it was, was in the religion and he tried to get my mom
and I involved. It was all hate and fear based and the occasional racist
comments were tossed around here and there. Not to mention all the devil stuff,
it was weird they thought everything was the devil, everything but themselves.
” She sipped her coffee “Luckily that marriage lasted only a month and a half.”

“Wow, Chris, I can’t imagine what that
must’ve been like for you.” She perked up “Hey, don’t even stress, I’m totally
fine. Most of my stepfathers were great and I get massive presents on my
birthday from the one’s I still keep in touch with.”

“That is pretty cool.” I said.

“So what happened at Crazy Daniel’s
party?”

I explained everything and told her how
he’d gotten grabby.

“Grabby as in normal drunk guy,
grabby?”

“No, that’s the part that scares me the
most, I think he was stark sober. I couldn’t smell alcohol on his breath and he
seemed totally normal. Then a fight almost broke out.” I winced, embarrassed
all over again.

“Yikes, ok that’s really no
bueno
. Are you ok?”

“I’m fine, there are worse things and
I’m glad the guys can use self-control because I almost didn’t and it would’ve
been potentially way worse than any of this.”

“What do you mean you ‘almost didn’t
use self control’ are you a black belt or something?”

Crap. I needed to watch my tongue. I
was too emotional just as I had been last night. I needed to be clearheaded and
focused. Keep my guard up or it’s dark shadow time for me. I put on my best
dumb girl face. “Ha, I just really wanted to slap him once I was free but I’m
glad I didn’t. It would’ve made it worse.”

“Worse? I would’ve paid to see you slap
him.”

“Maybe, I don’t know. I just want to
make a good impression in the town.”

She stood up and brought her mug to the
sink “Totally understandable. So listen, I’m going to head over to my mom and
step-dad number six’s house for the day. You’re welcome to join.”

I exhaled, relieved. “Thanks but I have
a bunch of errands to run.”

“That’s cool. I’ll be back pretty late
tonight so if I don’t see you, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Ok, have fun.” She said smiling and
sauntered off to her room, too love struck to bother hiding it.

“You too” I called out and got out some
cereal as I thought about what I should do today.

I needed a few things. I needed to go
to the bank to deposit my much needed paycheck. I needed to go grocery shopping
for food for the week. Lastly, I needed to hit a few farmer’s markets, gardens
and healing stores. Hopefully between them I could find the ingredients I
needed for a protective potion. While major spells could alert someone to my
presence, I could get away with making a few potions without much of a fuss.
Potions had considerably less residual magic to worry about but still had more
than charms and wards. Plus I could bring the potion with me wherever I went in
case I needed it.

It would be tricky though, I’d have to
buy them the items separately and guarantee I wasn’t followed. I’d also have to
pay in cash so I couldn’t be tracked. Even if this town had an apothecary, I
couldn’t go in and buy all of the ingredients needed for a protective potion.
More than likely, a witch would own the shop or one would be working there.
They would know precisely what I was and what I was going to do if I bought
exact ingredients. Buying a bunch of random ingredients and items in the store
to look like a wannabe Wiccan would be too dangerous. I couldn’t deliberately
put myself in a place that would have other witches hanging around in spades.