Shifting Shadows (Sparks Collide Trilogy) (25 page)

“I know what you mean. It’s been a long
day hasn’t it?”

“It has and it’s not over yet.” “I know
and I’m glad. Today was one of those days that I don’t mind if it lasts
forever. Do you know what I mean?” I felt his shoulders shifting beneath my
hands. The strength in them distracted me with every tiny motion as we danced.

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean but
I also wish I could relive it and change a few things.”

I backed away a little. Afraid of what
he might say but I asked anyway. “What would you change?”

His eyes turned serious. “Fighting with
you, yelling at you the way I did. Not giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

I exhaled slowly. “Me too, I mean, I
wish I could take back some of my yelling too.”

“Not all of it?” he asked jokingly.

I looked up into his eyes “We’re ok
now, aren’t we?
You and me?”

He blew out a breath pushing his hair
from his eyes. “Is that what you want?”

“Of course, you guys are the best
friends I’ve ever had.” He pulled me closer once more.

“Except for Elvis of course” he said
smiling.

I was surprised he remembered. “Right,
except for Elvis. What about you, what do you want?”

He leaned in. “I want to tell you that
you look amazing tonight.”

So did
he
.
“Thank-” I started to say but I was stopped when his mouth met mine. His lips
were soft and they felt like perfection. I melted into him as if my body were
saying “finally” to my brain. All the tension from the day exploded and the
kiss turned harder and even more amazing. I thought of nothing else as the
world disappeared around me.

I woke up this morning feeling almost
giddy. I took time to straighten my hair and put together a great outfit for
the day. The solid colored, red tank top was cute but casual and the flowing
skirt that hit just above my knees had floral prints that made it feminine and
whimsical, or so I hoped.

It was raining out so I skipped on the
bathing suit for now. The gentle taps on my window seemed happy. I hummed a
tune to match the window tapping as I put myself together, feeling only a
little silly doing it. I couldn’t wait to see him. I fell asleep last night in
a blissful haze, replaying the kiss over and over in my head. Creating some
sort of fantasy world where that had meant as much to him as it did to me.

I recalled the way I felt after he
pulled back and our eyes met. I’d been certain that it was more than just a
kiss. Jay probably kissed girls all the time. He’d had a player reputation but
I knew deep down that he hadn’t looked at those girls like that. He couldn’t
have. He looked so sincere and I felt like we connected on multiple levels.

We’d danced the rest of the night and
then we’d walked to the car hand in hand as we were leaving and most of our
friends made drunken comments about it but we didn’t care. When we got in the
house, he’d kissed me again at my door and left. I felt like I was on some
weird wavelength or dimension like with my third eye except the pain had
transformed into pleasure. I even floated above my bed a couple of times in the
night, my magic flowing freely through me.

It was through sheer mental force that
I could contain my magic even now as I replayed the kiss, gliding down the
hallway to breakfast. Then reality scissor kicked me in the head as I walked
into the kitchen, saw Jay notice me, stiffen, and then look away. That was the
only acknowledgement I got.

Rosie was running around with plates,
bustling food to and from the table, I couldn’t help but note she sure moved
fast for someone in her late 60’s, heck she moved fast for someone at any age.
Her urgency only added to the strange tension in the air. Will was attached to
his cell phone and pacing back and forth through the room, making terse grunts
every so often.

Trent, Logan, Demi, and Jay had their
heads together, whispering with staccato hand gestures and tense looks on their
faces. I imagined a tree house around them and a big “Keep out!” sign hanging
above their heads.
Brandon
was stuffing his face like he’d never
have food again but at least he looked somewhat happy, excited even. Annabella
and Mena stared directly at their plates and didn’t look up at me.

Finally, Jay sighed and addressed me
“Kira”, he said, his tone exceedingly stern. “The guys and I are going on a
fishing trip for the day but Max gets sea sick and asked if you would stay here
with him to help him with some of his research on magic.” This was clearly a
lie. Not the Max gets seasick part, that I believed but wanting me to stay for
Max was just an excuse.

Something was going on. Not only was he
lying but he was lying right after he kissed me. Red flag, anyone? “Can we talk
in another room?” I turned to see faces around us give the “oh crap” looks.

“We’ve really got to get going. We can
talk when I get back if you want.”

I shook my head at him “How’s the
porch? Good? Great, follow me.” He clearly didn’t want to follow me but that
was too bad. We got outside and closed the glass door. Rain came pouring down,
dripping off the roof and splashing us slightly. For some reason it no longer
sounded happy to me. “Is this soundproof, like will they be able to hear us?”

“Yes it’s soundproof. No one will hear
us.”

I sighed. “Who goes on a fishing trip
when it’s raining? What’s going on, tell me the truth.” It was the least he
owed me after breaking my heart. I didn’t harp on that though. I just listened.

He put his hands through his hair. “My
father called and he wants us to investigate a break in at one of the local
werewolf packs about an hour north of here. Apparently they had an attack last
night just like the one at Doc’s. It had been a human attacker like ours but it
managed to kill one werewolf before fleeing the scene. One neighbor heard the
crash and went to investigate. A few neighbors recall a person in black clothes
running away.”

“Let me come with you.”

“No, this is why I tried to avoid
telling you in the first place. I’m not letting you put yourself out there any
more than you already have. You don’t have to be tangled up in this, no way.”

“You didn’t ‘avoid’ telling me, you
flat out lied and trust me I don’t want to be exposed anymore than you do but I
can help. I saw the attacker, you didn’t. I’m the only one who can see if the
stories match up.”

“Sorry but no, this is pack business.”

“Oh, don’t give me that, Jay. I’m
involved.”

“Yes, so long as you’re alive you can
help. You can’t help if you’re dead or kidnapped by your long lost witch
cousins.”

“You’re not my Alpha, Jay. You don’t
get to decide what I do.”

“I’m not but you literally cannot be on
pack business. My father is finally counting on me to do something, all because
I happen to be near the location. It might be nothing at all but I’m not
risking you either way.”

“Fine but just so you know I make all
of my own decisions. If you think you know better than I do about my own safety
think again. I’ve kept myself hidden for 23 years. I know what risks I can and
cannot take. Lying to me is pointless, I can see right through it. It only
makes me angry.” I couldn’t look at him anymore. I was too depressed. We stood
there for what felt like eternity, me staring at my shoes and him staring out
to the ocean.

“Fair enough…I have to get going.”

I opened the glass door and walked
inside. “Bye.”

Everyone had turned to me when I walked
into the kitchen. Not about to show my disappointment and embarrass myself
further, I swallowed the pain and did my best to sound bright and cheery. “I’d
love to hang out with Max. Where is he?”

Trent
looked perplexed at my reaction, like
he thought I would have challenged Jay on his lie. “Oh. Good” he exhaled,
relieved. “He’s in the shower, he’ll be out later. We’re leaving now, so we’ll
catch up with you guys tonight.”

Jay walked in past me and stared at me,
looking like he wanted to say something but
Trent
murmured something to him about
“running out of time.”

Brandon threw his arm over my shoulder
and directed me to the food, where of course there were muffins, bagels,
waffles, steak and eggs, pancakes, cereal, and toast spread out on the counter
like an all you can eat buffet. I snagged an everything-bagel with cream cheese
and some hazelnut flavored coffee and turned to leave. I decided that a good
movie, good food, and some alone time was just what I needed. I yelled “thanks
Rosie” when she flew by me, hands full of everyone’s’ now empty plates.

When she nodded I announced to anyone
in the room willing to listen that I would be in the den, if Max came looking
for me. I popped in a
DVD
from the impossibly massive
collection, settled into the plushest chair in the room and wrapped a blanket
around myself, for comfort more than warmth.

Max wandered in a few minutes later and
I convinced him that a lazy, movie day was much more appropriate than research,
after our wild night out last night. To my happy surprise, he agreed, as long
as he got to pick the next movie. We stayed like that for most of the day, trading
off movie genres. My picks were mostly funny or action/ adventure films,
obviously not in the mood for romance and his were mostly intelligent suspense
thrillers.

I was actually feeling pretty good
around
7
p.m.
when I
heard the other guys come through the front door. It was weird how quiet the
house had been when they were gone and I realized I liked having them around,
even with all their loudness. I was excited to see everyone and I figured I
could handle facing Jay now without acting weird.

At first I was angry because he kissed
me and then acted like he didn’t. Then decided he could lie to me. I’m ashamed
to admit I contemplated cursing him more times than I could count. Didn’t he
care about my feelings at all? I thought we were friends at the very least. If
he wanted me to stay he should’ve been straight up, if he was avoiding me for
other reasons…It wasn’t something I wanted to contemplate.

Either way he couldn’t control me or
think I’d be cool with lying and that was something he needed to know. I stewed
in my anger and self pity for a while until I concluded that we were friends
and I wasn’t going to ruin that, let him ruin that, or make this trip awkward
for anyone. I could fake it for now. Bottom line, I wanted these people in my
life and I would do whatever I needed to make sure they would be there. It’d be
fine, I’d be fine. I’d repeat it until it was true.

I walked in feeling exhausted and
relieved. The familiar scents of home and even better the smells of dinner
being cooked relaxed me at last. Today had been pretty tough; the
out-of-the-frickin-no-where assignment had us all on alert and on edge.
Luckily, it turned out ok with only a few minor injuries, nothing a few shifts
hadn’t fixed.

This was because no sooner had we arrived
at the scene and were greeted by the pack, then were we face to face with
bloodsuckers. The vampires decided to come investigate too. I was surprised
they’d shown up during the day time but I knew they could be fine in the
sunlight if they were old enough. They showed up in their tinted limos and
sauntered in like they owned the place. As to be expected, neither the pack we
were visiting nor my own pack wanted to deal with that.

As official liaison for my own pack, I
greeted the vamps somewhat cordially. “Hi, I’m Jay Dellarson of the
Central Florida
pack, son of the Alpha of the
southeastern hemisphere of
North
America
.” It
was a long title but it was true and usually gave me access to whatever I
wanted. Plus vamps love their formalities.

One vamp stepped forward. He was only
about 5’7 but he was ghostly pale with dark features, typical vampire. He spoke
with a heavy Pan-European accent and said “I am Paul. My clan has had
something…similar happen in our home. We are here to investigate.”

That was…curious. “You guys had a human
attack you?”

“That is none of your concern. If you
will excuse us we will be quick and out of your fur, excuse me hair.”

A snarl came from some of the
werewolves around me. I’m not even sure if they were coming from my own pack or
not. I found it interesting that the vampires might be dealing with the same
issue and it had to be bad enough that they would come into an enemies’ camp to
investigate it. I wasn’t however, fool enough to believe they’d give us any
answers if they had them. Things just didn’t work like that.

The first thing we did was go inside
the home of the deceased. It was homey. It matched most of the houses in the
neighborhood. The neighborhood was set up very similarly to ours and was most
importantly open to werewolves only. We’d been told the deceased had been 36, a
bachelor and had been a kind man. The owner had chosen comfort over style with
thick blankets and fluffy decorative pillows near the couch and a floor rug
over the hard wood floors that looked torn and old. It didn’t look like an
unpleasant place to live though. I could see someone making a pot of tea in the
little kitchenette or watching sports up on the big screen from the green
couch, surrounded by blankets and an ugly rug.