I’d say she was like a breath of fresh air, but I don’t talk like that. I don’t think along those frilly little lines. Still, I was too observant to miss the fact that she was different, that my reaction to her was different.

For the six weeks I’d been in D.C. I’d been coming to this little bar just about every night of the week. Five of those nights, six if I was really lucky, she was here. The tight miniskirt and even tighter T-shirt that was the waitress uniform didn’t really go with her quiet smile and soft brown eyes. The black hair that fell in wavy strands down to the center of her back, elegantly arched eyebrows, and pouty mouth, did in fact match the sultry ambiance the bar reeked of. Contradictions—there were so many of them where she was concerned. I’d begun keeping a mental list.

For instance, she served everything from domestic beer to top-shelf liquor eight to ten hours a day and yet I’d never seen her put a glass to her lips. On her breaks she had water or soda, never liquor. Sure, that could be because she wasn’t allowed to drink on the job, but that wasn’t it. She wasn’t a drinker, I was sure of it.

Another one was that I knew she made good tips. Hell, I gave her at least twenty to thirty dollars a night when I was here, but she drove a beat-up old car and lived in a shabby room she rented from an old drunken man who was probably charging her much more than the shack was worth. Yeah, I’d followed her home a time or two, on those nights when she’d closed up the bar and was driving home alone at three in the morning. I just figured it was safer that way, figured if anything happened I’d be there … to protect her I guess.

All those years of training that I’d detested so much didn’t seem to go away, no matter how far I’d run.

Two weeks ago I’d landed a job at a warehouse, filling orders of computer equipment for what seemed like long hours on top of hours. It wasn’t a career, it was a paycheck, and a damned good one at that. I had an apartment, my truck, and I came to the bar at night for hot wings and cold beers. Life was good.

Except she was too damned pretty, too damned innocent-looking for me to ignore. I craved the sight of her more than the beer and wings I always ordered. Needed to see her, be near her, more than I needed to breathe on most nights.

“Another Blue Moon for you?” she asked in that low, sweet voice she had.

I did a double-take because for the last hour or so another waitress, the “hot-and-I-know-it” one with the blond braids, had been waiting on me. Her short skirt, fishnet stockings, and tits falling over the rim of her low-cut T-shirt definitely fit her “whatever-you-want-I’ll-provide” attitude. I didn’t care for her much, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t the one I’d come to see.

“Sure,” I said, instantly happier now that the pretty one, the one I couldn’t get out of my mind no matter how much I drank or how hard I tried, was waiting on me. “I mean, yes, thank you.”

I thought I should smile but I didn’t do that often. Then again, I didn’t feel this way often. She had that effect on me. She made me want to do things I didn’t usually do, didn’t usually even think about doing. Although I was taught proper etiquette for the human world, I didn’t use “please” and “thank you” much. Hadn’t met many humans that actually deserved good manners in my travels. As for the females, well, there wasn’t a lot I tended to say to them beyond, “Yeah, I got a condom,” and “No, I’m probably not gonna call you.” I did, however, believe in honesty. I’d much rather hear the truth, good or bad, right up front, than be hand-fed one lie after another. But with this female, I was always clearing my throat to make sure my voice was steady and concentrating so that my accent didn’t make it hard for her to understand whatever I was saying.

I made eye contact with her, listened intently to whatever it was she was saying, even if I didn’t need her to run down the nightly specials, since they were always the same.

“Are you finished with that plate? I can get it out of your way if you are,” she offered, nodding her head in the direction of the half-eaten plate of hot wings sitting in front of me.

I’d been starving when I got off work two and a half hours ago, couldn’t wait to get here and get the piping hot and heavily seasoned wings that I’d come to favor. But after eating only half, I’d lost my appetite. Or rather I realized my appetite had actually been centered on seeing her again, being close to her providing a different type of sustenance than the food had.

“Yes, I’m finished. Except for the beer,” I added because I didn’t want her to forget to come back.

“No problem,” she said, giving me a half smile. She leaned over the table a bit to pick up the plate.

I could see down the V of her blouse, the swell of her breasts that looked soft and creamy. Her complexion was almost as dark as mine, but everything about her skin looked smoother and much more enticing than my own. As if that weren’t enough to jump-start an erection, the fresh and store-bought vanilla scent of her wafted into my nostrils and I had to grit my teeth. My hands fell to my lap as I moved a little to make the appropriate comfort adjustments.

“I’d like some nachos and cheese too,” I said impulsively.

When she looked at me this time her forehead had the cutest wrinkle and she leaned back a bit before asking, “Are you sure? Because you didn’t finish your wings.”

I was sure that ordering more items would ensure her return to my table at least two more times tonight. That meant this insane urge I had to be close to her would be sated, sort of.

I nodded. “I’m positive.”

She shrugged, but didn’t offer me the smile again. When she walked away, even though the view of her tight little ass in that too little skirt was more than arousing, I found that I really wanted to see that smile again.

I liked the way it made me feel inside, the swirl and plummet effect it had on the pit of my stomach, the spreading heat it solicited between my legs. She was definitely hot and I definitely wanted to taste her, what I wasn’t so sure of was if one taste would be enough.

This time I’d managed only a third of the nachos and half the beer in forty minutes. I couldn’t stop staring at her, couldn’t wrap my mind around anything else but the way she moved, the way she flipped her hair back behind her shoulders whenever she approached a table, and the adorable way she bit her bottom lip as she wrote the larger orders in her notepad. Each time she walked past me and I caught a whiff of her scent I thought I was going to jump up out of that chair and grab her. My palms itched with the desire to touch her, my mouth watered with the thought of tasting her.

I wanted this female with everything I was, everything I never wanted to be, and I didn’t even know her name.

Pathetic. I know. And I’d just reached into my back pocket for my wallet so I could pay and take my pitiful self home when he came through the front door and headed right for her. A growl rumbled deep in my chest and it was all I could do to keep my body—and the cat raging with jealousy included—in the chair.

He was about six feet tall, long arms on a mildly built frame. He wore faded jeans, steel-toed boots, and a long-sleeved thermal shirt. His hair was cut really short, almost bald but not quite and he had a straight, sharp jawline that ended with a goatee. I’d never wanted to be like anyone else in my life. In fact, due to circumstances beyond my control, I knew that was impossible. Still, I admit to having considered cutting my light beard and mustache into a goatee, thinking maybe that’s what she liked. Thankfully, I’d changed my mind. I liked the completed look better and before now hadn’t thought twice about my facial hair or how anyone else would react to it. The inconsistencies about her had spilled over to me. That made me uncomfortable, really, damned uncomfortable.

I watched him walk straight to the bar and stop. Her back had been turned as she punched keys on the cash register, but it was like she knew he was there because she immediately turned to see him. A small smile appeared. It was tentative and possibly rehearsed as she held up a finger telling him she’d be with him in a minute. His hands clenched on the bar railing as she turned her back and my teeth gnashed.

It wasn’t any of my business I knew, but nothing short of an earthquake would move me from this seat. I picked up my beer and took a small sip, keeping my eyes trained on the bar. Hair rose at the back of my neck as the front door swung open again and another guy came in heading for the bar to stand right next to the bastard that had quietly summoned the pretty girl. It would help if I knew the names of all the players, but until this very moment that hadn’t seemed important. Actually, it didn’t seem important now, all that mattered was that she remained safe, because the eerie feeling I was getting from these two wasn’t a good sign.

She turned away from the cash register and walked over to the two guys. My eyes followed her every move. The second guy gave a wicked smile to the first, patted him on the back, then moved away. The first guy instantly reached for her, grabbing her by the wrist until she was leaning over the bar close enough so that he could roughly kiss her lips.

I put down my beer with a hard clank.

“You finished with that, baby?” the blond waitress asked.

She was back. Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard. Okay, maybe that wasn’t fair. Her voice wasn’t that high, it just irritated the hell out of me because I was so focused on that guy touching the girl I was just slightly obsessed with. He was touching my girl.

“No,” I replied without even glancing at the other waitress. I hated how they would switch off tables throughout the night without any rhyme or reason. When I thought I was sitting at a table that she would wait on, I’d get the blonde at least part of the night. They didn’t do that in any other place I’d been; then again, I didn’t go anywhere but here.

“Okay. Well, then can I get you something else?” she persisted.

He was still kissing her.

“No,” I said more emphatically. “I’ve already had nachos and beer.”

“Well, if you’re finished, you can’t just sit here and stare at people all night, you know.” I could hear the irritation in her voice but didn’t really give a damn.

“Either you order something else or you’ll have to leave.”

I didn’t want anything else. All I wanted was for him to get his fuckin’ hands off of her.

“Fine,” I told the blonde, still not bothering to look at her. “Get me another beer.”

She sucked her teeth and mumbled something else and then thankfully she was gone.

My girl finally pulled away from him, which was another reason to give thanks. He said something, I couldn’t tell what because his back was to me, but she immediately declined, saying she had to close tonight. Being such a solitary person since leaving the circle of my two older brothers and sister, I’d become really adept at reading lips. Just because I didn’t like talking to people didn’t mean I didn’t want to know what they might be saying about me.

He must not have believed her or didn’t care because she insisted it was true, said she wasn’t getting off until the bar closed at three and that she would be too tired to come to his place afterward. Very good decision. The guy didn’t think so. She was coming around the bar and out onto the floor when he reached for her again, this time wrapping his arm all the way around her small waist and pulling her back up against him. My shoulders tingled at the sight, my teeth clenching. When he used one hand to tilt her neck and then kissed its length, I wanted to peel that bastard’s hands and lips off her. Her sweet scent was shifting, melting into another aroma that I detested and I’d already stood, ready to move, ready to act. But her manager stepped in front of her and had words with the guy.

“Fuck off, old man,” he said to the manager, but he had let her go and she’d quickly moved away.

Without hesitation, I walked over to where she stood on the other side of the room flipping through her receipts. Fear engulfed her as her fingers shook and she ended up dropping several to the floor. The scent was thick and threatening to choke me, or push the cat inside, until I ended up choking that bastard guy she liked instead. Determined to keep her close, to keep her safe, I bent down to pick them up at the same time that she did and our hands collided over one particular receipt.

She looked up instantly, jerking her hand back as if my touch had somehow burned her. I tried not to be offended even if a part of me knew she’d done the right thing. She shouldn’t be near me, shouldn’t touch me because I wasn’t what she thought. I couldn’t dismiss feeling some sort of electric fission when we’d touched. It was followed by a flow of heat that moved straight to my groin, pooling into a pleasurable erection, so I couldn’t bring myself to complain. Needless to say I was a little more reluctant to pull away, but figured it was the right thing to do.

I handed her the receipt as she continued to stare quizzically at me.

“Thank you,” she managed finally and stood up.

She was moving so fast, about to walk away, but I wanted her to stay. I knew it was wrong but I wanted it anyway. I wanted her regardless.

I touched a hand to her shoulder. It was a soft touch, in no way as rough as the way that asshole had grabbed her and yet she’d turned around fast as if she planned to punch me in the face.

“What are you doing?” she asked me.

“I wanted to make sure you were alright,” I replied honestly, and a little too quickly.

“I’m fine,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “Just keep your hands to yourself.”

Right. Keep my hands to myself while jerk-off over there can maul you in public. Those words I kept to myself even though I figured she really needed to hear them.

“You’re right,” I said tightly instead. “I should keep my hands to myself.” I was digging in my pocket as I spoke and when I found the money in my wallet, I pulled out some bills and thrust them in her direction. “This should cover my check,” I told her before moving, being absolutely certain not to touch her in any way and headed for the front door.

I stopped right there, my hand hovering over the handle and inhaled deeply, letting the breath out slowly. There was something here—in addition to her previously sweet scent and now the tangy stench of her fear—something more than the liquor and cigarette smoke. It was something that was not quite right. I turned, looking over my shoulder and saw that the bastard had made his way over to her once again, rubbing his hand over her ass as she tried to clear off the next table.

I felt like an idiot because it was right there in my face as if to say I was probably the dumbass for attempting to intervene in what was obviously an acceptable relationship between the two. She wasn’t my girl just because I liked looking at her or because she invaded my dreams every night, my thoughts every waking moment.

It was obvious that she belonged to him. He had permission to touch her, to kiss her, to want her. I did not.

With a frown so potent my temples ached I yanked open the door and walked out into the brisk fall air. To hell with her if the jerk-off was who she wanted touching her. I didn’t give a damn anyway. I really didn’t.

I’m a victim of abuse, some sexual, a little physical, but mostly psychological. I accept that. Years after the offenses, I can even admit they happened without breaking down completely. Sure I may shed a tear or two here and there at the painful memories, but I am not a victim.

By that I mean that for the three years, since I walked out of my mother’s house in Suitland, Maryland, on the morning of July 4, I have been an independent, self-sufficient female. I don’t need a boyfriend, but I don’t shy away from the opposite sex either, regardless of the horrible things I was forced to see sexually. I’ve never been to any type of counseling, unless you include the detailed diary I’d kept since the first night he’d entered my bedroom. Whenever things became too quiet in my mother’s house I reread pages in that diary to remind myself how sick the man my mother had married really was and to never let down my guard around him, no matter what.

I never reported the abuse because I knew my mother was also culpable, and despite how disappointed I was in her for not kicking that lowlife perverted bastard out of her house after he knocked her out the first time, I didn’t want to see her in jail. Books were my friend, the library my safe haven, and they had been since I was five years old. So when it all started, I read books about it happening to others. I knew what rights I had and I knew exactly what would happen if I told someone. Some days I didn’t care, some days I just wanted him dead or, at the very least, gone from my sight forever. There were two specific times that I almost called the police. I told myself there wouldn’t be a third time. But my eighteenth birthday came first and I left.

He’s probably still beating and raping my mother. She doesn’t want to be saved, so I stopped thinking about saving her long ago.

All these thoughts flooded into my mind the moment Dex grabbed my wrist. My body had shivered all over, my vision going blurry in those next few seconds. Bile rose in my throat and I thought for sure I would lose it right there in the middle of the bar, in front of all those people. And then the part of me that I’d hidden so well would surely be revealed. I would be devastated.

Swallowing deeply, taking deep breaths had helped. I hadn’t vomited, nor had I fainted or broken out into hysterical screams. I’d stood perfectly still, breathing, while his fingers were so tight I knew there would be a bruise tomorrow. As a matter of fact, I hated that there would be a bruise tomorrow.

I’d been seeing him for about five weeks now. He’d come into the bar late one night and looked like a brooding hero, like Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. His thick eyebrows almost gave him a unibrow; the sharp features of his face gave him an edgy kind of attractiveness that for whatever reason I was drawn to. Our first date had been a little awkward. We saw a movie—a vampire flick—and then had drinks at another bar where two of his friends joined us. I’d been nervous for the first couple of moments but then Dex acted all possessive of me and I felt safe. Tonight, I didn’t feel safe at all.

Until the other guy’s hand touched mine.

Okay, maybe I was romanticizing things. I had a habit of doing that, seeing heroes everywhere I looked, ones that matched the heroes I read about in all the romance novels I downloaded on my e-reader. I was thirteen when I read my first adult romance book and I’d been hooked since then. Sure there were more age-appropriate books, now more than ever actually, but I knew what I’d fallen in love with, I knew what made my heart beat fast, my smile spread, and what kept hope alive for me. It was the romance.

See, I was doing it again, romanticizing the idea of some guy that came into the bar every night drinking beers like they could drown away whatever bad things that had taken place in his life. I mean, I assumed bad things had happened because he had the biggest, saddest, dark brown eyes I’d ever seen. He usually ate like he was starving, except tonight he didn’t and before Dex had come in I’d been wondering why.

I wondered about him a lot, more than I guess I should have since technically I was going out with Dex. But there was something sort of lonely about him, something that pulled me to him every time he entered the bar.

Then the mystery guy had appeared right in front of me, our fingers brushing as we both attempted to pick up the same receipt. I pulled away because it felt like I’d touched a live electrical wire. To be quite honest, it sort of felt like a door had been opened inside of me. Things had begun to happen inside instantly—my boobs tingled, nipples puckering, my thighs shook, wanting to clench right there to stall the slow throbbing that had begun between my legs.

For his part—the guy that held more of my attention than I thought was necessary—he didn’t seem as bothered by the touch as I did. Sure, he’d looked at me strangely, but he always did that. Guilt came next, like a stinging slap against the back of my head. I was dating Dex. This other guy shouldn’t turn me on, or intrigue me, or both.

He’d left the bar about an hour ago and yet I was still standing here thinking about him when I should be counting up my last receipts.

“Your guy Dex was looking all kinds of delicious tonight, girl,” Hanna said once she’d slipped onto the bar stool, crossed one leg, and pulled her four-inch heeled ankle boot off. She was rubbing her foot as she continued to talk. “Who was his friend? I swear he comes in here with the sexiest guys but none of them talk much. I must have rubbed my tits against his back four or five times and he never even blinked my way. Jerk.”

Hanna was twenty-three and had been working in bars since she was sixteen. She was the one who’d given me the heads-up about the wonderful accommodations I now lived in and given Roy, the manager here, a superior—albeit fake as hell—reference for me to get this job. I felt like I owed her one, but really, I would have been friends with her even if she hadn’t done those things, because Hanna was nice, beneath her tough exterior and heavily made-up face. She was also loyal and I needed a little bit of that in my life.

“This was a new guy. I’ve never seen him before,” I told her while I finished adding the last of my receipts.

“Do they work for him or something? Where do they come from? They look all dark and exotic.” Hanna smiled as she thought about it.

I shook my head, wrapping a rubber band around all my receipts to keep them all neat and straight, then clapping them onto the bar. Roy was a stickler for neatness around here.

“I’ve never said more than hi and bye to any of them. They show up, Dex talks to them, and then they go.”

I learned a long time ago not to ask questions I really didn’t want the answers to. It’s not that I had anything against Dex’s friends, I just didn’t like them. Not the way I liked Dex. But what did I know? I was still trying to figure out why I didn’t get the same physical reactions from Dex as I did from the mysterious stranger with the sad eyes.

“Ooooh, mysterious,” Hanna said. “So what does Dex do? Is he some kind of drug dealer? Because if so you need to cut his ass loose. The last thing you need is to get caught up in some kind of raid. My sister, Jenna, got caught with drugs in her house because her boyfriend was hiding shit in her vent. She got a PBJ and five years’ probation, has to go downtown and piss in a cup every Monday morning by court order. It sucks!”

I nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with Hanna’s conclusions. “No, I’m definitely not trying to have any run-ins with the law. He said his uncle runs some type of business down in Alexandria and he’s working there with him.”

“Oh, okay, that sounds cool,” Hanna said, taking off the other boot and letting it fall to the floor. “You do good in tips tonight?”

“Enough to pay my cable bill,” I reported with a smile.

“You go, girl.” Hanna gave me a high five and we went around turning the chairs up onto the tables talking about the next time we were off and splurging on a spa day.

I moved around the bar, clearing a couple of tables, putting some glasses on the bar to be put into the dishwasher, trying to ignore the sensations still sifting through my body. It was as if he’d just touched me five minutes ago. My boobs still ached, between my legs throbbing. I was a mess. I had a boyfriend and was thinking about letting another guy touch me, kiss me, damn I wanted … I didn’t even know his name.

Half an hour later Hanna and I both had our jackets on, purses on one shoulder, car keys in hand as we walked out the front door. Roy was still inside so he’d lock up after he recounted our receipts. Hanna had come in an hour after me today, said she had some kind of appointment before work, so the parking lot had been almost full when she arrived. She’d had to park around the side of the building. I had parked right out front. After we said our good nights and shared a hug, she went around the corner. I hurried to my car, planning to get inside and drive around the corner so I could see that Hanna had gotten into her car safely. The dark figure leaning against my car stopped me.

I looked back immediately to see if Hanna was still there but it had grown really chilly out tonight and she only had on a thin sweat suit jacket, so she’d been hustling to get into her car and turn up the heat. I wore my old leather jacket so I wasn’t really cold, but I was very concerned about who was waiting for me at my car.

Scratch that, I was a little afraid. My heartbeat picked up as I moved and I wondered for a split second if I should just run around back to get Hanna to bring me to my car. But I didn’t stop, I kept moving toward the car, toward the dark figure as if, somehow, this was where I was supposed to be.

As I walked I adjusted the keys in my hand, finding the can of Mace on the chain and flicking off the top so I’d be ready if needed. My heart thumped as I drew closer to the driver’s side of my car. The tall male that had been leaning against the door stood, hands in pockets, staring at me.

His facial hair made his complexion appear darker than I really thought it was and those ominous eyes glared at me just the way they did as I moved around the bar. No matter how much I tried to ignore him, I knew he watched me every night he was there. The funny and probably crazy-as-hell thing was that when he wasn’t there watching me, I sort of missed it. Yes, I’m going to stick with calling it crazy that I’d obviously managed to attract some kind of stalker, and wasn’t totally freaked out about it. My finger moved over the nozzle of the Mace as I stopped in front of him.

“What are you doing here? I thought you had left a while ago.” Maybe I could have been nicer, but why? He was creeping me out, standing here in the dark parking lot like he was Batman or something. I half expected him to speak in a raspy voice and to say something obscure instead of superhero-like. And the way he made me feel inside, despite the creepiness was beginning to piss me off.

“I wanted to be sure you were okay,” was his response.

His voice seemed deeper out here in the cool night air than it had in the bar. However, his body was just as broad, just as muscled as I’d noticed on many nights before. And he smelled … I tried not to inhale too deeply, because I already knew how he smelled, especially after our collision earlier. It was an extremely fresh smell, like a rainy day. It made me want to run my fingers through his hair, the unruly, too-long locks that tended to fall over his forehead just as it furrowed and his eyes narrowed. I would only admit that to myself since I’d die if he knew I’d been paying as much attention to him as it appeared he had to me.

“I’m fine and I don’t think you should be checking up on me,” I told him, no matter how sweet I thought it actually was. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get home. It’s late.”

I tried to move around him. That was pointless. He stood between the side of my car and Roy’s car, which was parked right beside mine. And he filled the space completely. He was built like those guys at the gym, the ones that I figure must have lived there with all the intricate cuts and chiseled muscles they readily displayed. Sure, I’d never seen this guy in shorts and a tight tank, but I was positive he was as mouthwatering as the gym buffs.

“Did he hurt you?”

His next question startled me and I stopped my attempt to get past him. I looked up at him questioningly. “Nobody hurt me and nobody is going to hurt me ever again.” My lips clamped shut as soon as I’d said those words. It was too much information and I knew it the second the words tumbled free. His head tilted slightly, that thick lock of hair falling close to his left eye. My fingers itched to brush it away, even as my heart began a steady pounding. It wasn’t fear that had tripped my heart rate this time, not that bone-chilling fear that had seeped into my body when Dex had grabbed me earlier. This was different, it was … anticipation, and that had me gasping.

“I saw him grab you and yell at you. If he hurt you I can take care of it,” he proclaimed seriously.

Licking my now-dry lips, swallowing to be sure my voice didn’t crack when I spoke, I shook my head. “I don’t need you to take care of anything. I don’t even know you,” I replied.

He opened his mouth to speak, then pressed his lips together. He took a deep breath and then exhaled. For those seconds I watched that movement as if being mesmerized. His lips, the rise and fall of his chest, everything about him made me want to … to what?

I had no idea what this guy was about to do and I didn’t want to wait to figure it out. So I pushed past him to get to my car door. His body was so hard and the heat that emanated from it made me want to lean in farther, to wrap myself in the warmth and possibly feel the safety I’d always longed for. That didn’t make any sense. How could someone I didn’t even know make me feel safe? How could I know how warm being wrapped in his arms would be?

I didn’t anticipate his next move and it startled me so badly I dropped my Mace and gasped. He turned with my movement and flattened me against the door, his hands going to both sides of the car to trap me there.

“I’m Caleb and if I see him grab you like that again, I’m going to break his arms.”

His words were spoken with such vehemence, such absolute rage I knew they were true. He would break Dex’s arms. I don’t know why and I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to happen, still, I didn’t doubt his … Caleb’s words one bit.

“He’s my boyfriend,” I said defiantly. “He’s allowed to touch me. You,” I said, gathering my strength and lifting my hand to poke him in his chest, “you are not.”

He frowned down at me, sparks of brightness streaking through his otherwise dark eyes. I thought he was going to hit me then or at the very least shake me until I felt like my eyeballs would roll right out of my head—that would have been all too familiar.

“You are foolish,” he said through clenched teeth. “He will hurt you if you let him.”

“You don’t know me and you don’t know Dex. And if you don’t get away from me right now I’m going to—”

My words were cut off at the sound of a horn and then we were caught in the intense glare of headlights on high beam. The brightness fell over his face and my breath caught. He looked so fierce, so angry and yet he was the most attractive guy I’d ever seen in person—magazine and online pics of man candy did not count. There was a sudden urge to wrap my arms around his neck and hold on for dear life, but I dismissed that as being over-the-top romantic and definitely falling for the bad-boy hero, which I swore I’d never do.

“Hey, Zoe, you okay?” Hanna called from her car. “You need me to dial nine-one-one?”

“I’m not the bad guy here,” he whispered, looking down at me. “But you already know that, don’t you?”

I nodded and then swallowed, searching for my words—even if they were only primal ones—because standing here mute wasn’t my best look. I believed what he’d said. I don’t know why, but I did. I just didn’t know how to react to them.

“I’m okay, Hanna,” I lied, but used the opportunity to push Caleb off of me and turned to hurriedly unlock my car door. “I’ll be right behind you,” I told her.

“Good, because I’d hate to have such a good customer arrested for harassment!” Hanna yelled. “But I will so don’t you forget it, buddy!”

Caleb had backed away from the car by the time I pulled the door open and slipped inside. I refused to look out the window to see what he was doing now, just put the key in the ignition and prayed it would actually start this time. It did, after some spit and sputtering action that was beyond embarrassing. On my nod, Hanna pulled her car up slowly and I moved my vehicle out of the parking spot. We both left the parking lot without looking back. Or, okay, maybe Hanna didn’t look back, but I did.

Caleb was still standing there, his hands in his pockets once more, his intense gaze still on me and my car, even though I was coming up on the intersection almost half a block away. Of course it was dark and I couldn’t really tell that he was looking at me, but I knew it, I could feel it almost as if his presence was right in the passenger seat beside me. It was an eerie feeling, an unfamiliar one, a warm and slightly satisfying one that I considered myself all kinds of a romantic fool for entertaining. But as I turned the corner, officially ending the visual contact between us, I smiled. Just a small one but one that warmed me all over as I imagined Caleb’s intense gaze, his warm body, and those intriguing eyes. In one of my romance novels he would be a hero, the brooding, sulking, dark hero that scared the heroine at first then kissed her until she melted.

Or he was the serial killer that stalked the spineless heroine who was naïve enough to fall for his brooding good looks. A nervous chuckle erupted in my chest and I shook my head, continuing my drive home while politely informing my inner romantic that Caleb and his creepy threats were not a good thing. Definitely not a good thing at all.

If he touched her again I was not only going to break his arm, I was going to break both arms, then his legs, then I was just going to kill the SOB. That’s how I was feeling the moment I turned into the bar parking lot, three nights later. I’d purposely stayed away because her words, “he’s my boyfriend and you’re not” still rang in my ears. Even though that probably wasn’t an exact quote, it had the same punch-in-my-gut result.

She was right, I wasn’t her boyfriend, so I really didn’t have a right to act possessive and protective of her. Hell, I’d only learned her name because her available-anytime-you-want friend—whose name I also now knew was Hanna—had yelled it across the parking lot. So from a factual standpoint, I probably should have minded my own business, but from a Shadow Shifter standpoint, that was impossible.

When that asshole—who had been identified by Zoe as Dex—had grabbed her by the arm she’d been afraid. The tangy, citrus scent of fear had wafted fresh and potent all the way across the bar, dangling in front of me like the red cape in front of a bull. I’d been able to restrain my reaction at that particular moment, but that had only been temporary. I wanted to let her know she was safe and that I would protect her. The realization that she didn’t give a rat’s ass about my shifter instincts, possibly because she thought I was simply another human, was both startling and annoying as hell.

Putting the truck in park and yanking the key out of the ignition, I thought of all the reasons why I shouldn’t be here, why I should have simply gone back to my apartment and continued to stay far away from this bar and this female. I don’t do connections—that was the first reason as clearly stated by the pattern of my life. I had gone from an orphan to the adopted son of Gil and Marta Sanchez, traveling the world with them and their two sons and daughter, to finally wandering around the human world on my own. Alone, which is how I always figured I’d end up.

Second, she was a human and I was a Shadow Shifter. No bigger taboo existed, at least not in the shifter world—the world in which I lived with one foot in and the other out, thanks to my mixed heritage. My mother had been a Shadow Shifter, while my father—the rotten bastard that had abused and raped my mother—had been a human. That should probably have made me hate the entire species but my mother had told me stories of other humans that lived outside of our village in the Gungi rainforest. They had been generous and compassionate to her, helping to clean her up after my father had brutally attacked her, and bringing her back to the Gungi. There had even been an old shaman that had come to our home to warn my mother about returning to the human village in search of my father. Apparently the old man with all his medicinal remedies and spiritual contacts had foreseen my mother’s fate. She hadn’t listened, led by the love for a man who had no use for her, and died for her efforts.

Again, I should hate humans, but I don’t. In fact, the human named Zoe was even more intriguing to me. I couldn’t get her out of my mind, not the soft sway of her hair along her shoulders, or the vibrant color of her eyes, or the soft, yet firm tone of her voice. Each time I closed my eyes I could see her, when I tried to drift off into sleep I imagined her, and when I woke up with a hard-on each morning, I wanted her.

With much futility I slammed my palms against the steering wheel, staring at the front door of the bar. It was closed but the lighted sign in the window right beside it stated the bar was OPEN. In another fifteen minutes that sign would switch to CLOSED and a half hour to forty-five minutes afterward, Zoe would come out. I knew her schedule now, knew the days she worked her seven or eight hours and got off at ten and the days she stayed until close of business. Tonight she was closing so I was waiting. What I was going to say or do when she came out I had no idea.

The screech of tires on asphalt ripped me from my thoughts and I immediately shifted my attention to the front of the parking lot. A black Hummer came into the lot pumping the piercing lyrics of Maroon 5 into the air and at a speed that just about promised a collision with the front wall of the building. Before I could think better of it I was out of my truck, stopping at the bumper as the other truck also came to a halt. The passenger-side front and back doors opened quickly and out jumped two guys. They laughed, the first guy turning to bump his fist against the other guy’s before both of them headed toward the front door. The driver came out last, switching off the ignition but keeping the music playing loudly.

It was Dex, I knew it the moment he came around the front of the vehicle and leaned against it. I stood at the front of my vehicle, not leaning, but staring pointedly at him. When I was out here three nights ago with Zoe there had only been floodlights at the back of the building. Tonight, when I pulled up I noticed that new lights had been added to the front as well. They’d stayed lit for about ten minutes after I’d parked my truck, probably enough time for someone to park their vehicle, get out, and walk into the bar. It was a good safety measure, one that they’d probably needed to have installed a long time ago. I wondered if Zoe had gone into work the day after our encounter and complained that she didn’t feel safe.

With a frown, I dismissed that thought and kept my eyes on Dex as the light fell over his vehicle and his leather-clad shoulders. He wore those big boots again, fitted black jeans, and a blue T-shirt with faded writing on the front. He reached into his front pants pocket and pulled out a lighter. In seconds the cigarette was lit and at his lips, the strong and undeniable scent of marijuana floating on the air.

After the first few puffs I wondered what the hell I was doing standing in a parking lot staring at some guy like I was going to rip his throat out—which by the way I totally wanted to do. I was about to turn away when I caught another scent, sifting slowly through the thick streams of marijuana odor and every muscle in my body tensed.

Dex looked up at that second, catching my gaze and staring at me with the cigarette between his lips, his fingers poised to take it out so he could blow more smoke from his mouth. It was a complete stare down, like men did just before a duel, except I had no weapon and I was guessing neither did Dex. The stench intensified and I was struggling to identify it while still keeping my eye on Dex when the front door of the bar opened and out came Dex’s laughing cohorts, followed by Zoe.

I took a step forward, to do what I wasn’t quite sure, but the sight of her now standing at the front of the vehicle with Dex and his goons right behind her, didn’t sit well with me. Dex grinned in my direction as he reached out and pulled Zoe by her waist up to him. Her hands went to his chest and she followed his gaze.

It felt like she’d reached across the parking lot right into my chest to squeeze my heart. I opened my mouth to air that wanted release, clenching my fists at my sides when she shook her head at me. Dex continued to laugh, his hands on her ass now while behind Zoe’s back his two friends gyrated and clapped. I wanted to run across that street, to grab her and pull her away from them. She didn’t belong with Dex, didn’t belong in that big-assed truck that looked more like an army tank. She belonged with …

Shaking my head, I broke all eye contact. Zoe did not belong with me. I belonged with myself, now and forever. It was safer for all concerned that way. The shaman back in Brazil had told me that. People that I felt like saving rarely wanted to be saved, he’d also said as he’d reflected on my mother. The parallel here was with Zoe. Like my mother, she had chosen who she wanted to be with, chosen the path she wanted her life to take. And no matter how much begging and pleading—or in this case, arguing and possibly fighting—I did, Zoe’s choice would still be her own.

So I turned away. I climbed into my truck and I took myself home, trying my damnedest to ignore the raw scrape of emotions that burned my chest as I looked through my rearview mirror to see Zoe climbing up into Dex’s truck. I turned out of the parking lot, this time my wheels screeching over asphalt, and I drove away.

Unable to breathe while anger and some unnamed sentiment clogged my senses, I rolled down my window to get some air and the stench that had searched for my attention back in the parking lot was there again, almost as if it were following me. It was slightly familiar, officious and raw and my eyes opened wider when I pinpointed exactly what it meant.

Dex and his merry men were rogues.

He hadn’t come into the bar again last night. This made a whole week since I’d spoken to Caleb. I’d seen him, three days after the night he’d blocked my car door, sitting in his truck in front of the bar. I’d walked out with Dex’s friends right behind me. Caleb looked at me and then pulled off.

And I was one lame-ass goofball for keeping such meticulous track of these events. Pushing my cart through the dairy section of the supermarket, I tried valiantly to recall what I’d wanted this week. I’d been cooking since I was eight and had to pull the chair over to the stove to put on six eggs. Two for me and two each for my younger brother and sister. I waited patiently that day, sitting in the chair and watching the clock on the microwave until it was exactly fifteen minutes later. I’d seen on a cooking show that it took that long to boil eggs. From that day on, when my mother was too badly beaten to get up out of bed, I went into the kitchen and fixed something for me and my siblings to eat. After a while I became pretty good at it.

That thought refreshed my memory and I picked up a container of sour cream for the new sauce I wanted to try with my pork chops tonight. Today was my day off so I had a lot of errands to run. Daydreaming in the supermarket was going to throw me off schedule, so I picked up the pace. I’d just cut the corner from the dairy section, going down the snack aisle when my cart collided with another one.

The rattling noise scared me much more than it should have and I let go of my cart handle, both hands going to my chest in an effort to still my thumping heart. Then I looked up and swallowed the last couple of thumps.

“Hope you don’t drive your car as recklessly as you’re driving this cart,” he said, his voice smooth like honey. The sound rippled through me in warm rivulets.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

He nodded, his gaze darkening and going lower. “And are you paying attention to what you’re doing now?”

I didn’t know what he meant so I looked down and goddammit! The fingers that were supposed to suppress the thumping of my heart were now cupping my boobs, which only added to the effect of his voice and now had my nipples hard. And as if I could not be any more embarrassed, I wasn’t wearing a bra. Again, goddammit!

“Oh!” I gasped and yanked my hands down ten seconds too late. “Stop staring at me.” It was making me uncomfortable. No, that was wrong, it was making me aroused. Hotter for him than I had been previously was more like it. Not only were my nipples hard now, but my thighs were shaking as if they either wanted to clamp shut like they did the night he’d summoned this same response, or like they wanted to spread open wide for him. I felt my cheeks flushing at both thoughts.

“Can’t,” he said with a shake of his head. “Nothing more enticing to stare at right now.”

“Whatever,” I replied, grabbing the handle of my cart and maneuvering so I could pass him.

I was intent on getting away from him, intent on stopping the storm of emotions that wracked my body each time he was in the vicinity. I took about three steps and then, because insanity seemed to be my state of mind when I was near him, I turned back only to see that he’d been staring at my ass. If I’d been properly dressed—meaning wearing clothes that I hadn’t fished out of the bottom of my closet and having my hair styled instead of in a messy braid down my back—I might have been flattered. But my yoga pants were a little on the small side and the jean jacket I’d thrown over the T-shirt was short and I just felt like I was a mess. A very hot and bothered mess. Apparently, Caleb felt differently.

“You can go now,” I said with a huff.

He had the audacity to smile. And if they could, my boobs would have sung a melodious tune at the sight. He wasn’t a cutie, not by a longshot. Instead he was a hottie, with a capital H and all the other letters all cap too! Something about the scruffy look of his beard and the hair that desperately needed to be cut and those bedroom eyes, and those arms that looked like cannons and … goddammit again!

“I like what I see here,” he replied eventually.

“You don’t have the right to look,” I said and wanted to bite off my own tongue. How juvenile did that sound? He could certainly look since there was no way I could stop him without gouging his eyes out, which would definitely be classified as overreacting.

And the really amazing thing was that a big part of me wanted him to look, and possibly touch. I don’t know, it was crazy, just as I’d thought before. Caleb wasn’t my boyfriend, and yet, I kind of felt like maybe, what if he was?

He shrugged. “It’s a free country.”

I didn’t know what else to say or do. Considering the fact that fifteen minutes ago I’d been thinking about not having seen him in seven days, one would think I’d be full of conversation. But all I could think about was how well those jeans fit his legs and that shirt—even though it was a Pittsburgh Steelers shirt—looked draped over his chest.

“Whatever,” I ended up saying again and quickly got the hell out of that aisle.

Five minutes later I was in the automated checkout line trying to hurry up and pay for my purchases—which for the record were not everything I needed. I was stuffing things in my recyclable grocery bags and about to turn around and leave when I bumped right into a chest built like a concrete wall.

“Need some help?” he asked.

Oh boy, did I. I needed help keeping my raging hormones in check.

“No. I’m fine. Thank you,” I said, my voice cracking on the last word. I swallowed hard to keep from saying anything else ridiculous, or at best not having my voice show how nervous he was making me.

He only lifted a brow as he said, “I won’t be cliché and say that you are absolutely fine.”

I closed my eyes, couldn’t help it, I loved his voice. I loved the way it was deep and smooth and sent tingles down my spine as if he’d actually touched me there. “No. Please don’t be cliché.”

“But I will walk you to your car.”

Damn, he was persistent and I wasn’t sure I could continue to attempt to ignore him, or the effect that he was having on me. “It’s okay, I can get there on my own. And it’s broad daylight so there’s no need for the extra protection.”

He ignored my words and grasped my arm. Flashbacks flew before my eyes like a movie on rewind, hitting, crying, screaming, pain. All at once each memory slapped at me and I didn’t have time to stop the reaction, didn’t have a moment to take the deep breaths, to look at something else, to concentrate, to hold it all in.

I screamed as if he’d smacked me, the sound echoing through the air. When my lips finally clamped shut, my teeth chattered and I looked around to see people in the market had stopped and stared. Caleb also stared, after he’d dropped my arm like it was a hissing snake.

It was the moment I’d dreaded happening all my life, the instant that somebody, anybody might pick up on the signs and figure out that the life I’d pretended to lead was a lie. My heart hammered in my chest as everything around me, all the people gawking at me, even Caleb’s slightly confused glare, spun around me, making me dizzy, woozy, possibly about to faint. Knowing that would only prolong the embarrassment, I did the next best thing. I got the hell out of that store before the questions could begin.

“He hurt you, didn’t he?”

The voice that I thought I might be falling a little bit in love with sounded angry, and just a bit cold. I continued walking until I was near my trunk, using the key to open it without daring to look at him.

“My arm got caught in the car door,” I said with a measure of self-disgust that I’d never felt before.

I slammed my trunk closed after putting the two bags of food I’d purchased inside. Caleb stood right in front of me looking as angry as he had eight nights ago.

“You’re lying,” he accused, his intense glare pinning me as if that would bring the truth out.

I was determined to stand my ground, didn’t feel like I had any other choice really. “I’m not.”

“You are, I can smell it.”

“What? Who smells lies?” I held up a hand to stop his response. “Forget it. I told you what happened and now I’m leaving.”

His eyes grew darker, his brows furrowing. There was no doubt he was angry, his next words only punctuated that fact as they were spoken through clenched teeth. “I told you I wouldn’t let him hurt you.”

I felt like he was engulfing me, his words, that is. The way he’d said them, the way he’d looked at me was almost the equivalent of him wrapping his arms around me, shielding me from all that was bad in the world. It was breathtaking and a little frightening at the same time.

“It’s not up to you to ‘let’ anything happen where I’m concerned. I’m not your girlfriend,” I told him because it was important that I kept reminding myself of that fact. It was imperative that we both knew what our boundaries were.

Facts and boundaries be damned, Caleb came closer, using a finger to tip my chin upward so that I was once again staring into those smoldering eyes of his.

“You shouldn’t be his either,” he said in a low, gruff voice that raked over my skin in the softest, hottest touch I’d ever experienced.

I sighed, because there really was no reason to be angry with Caleb. Dex had slammed the door with my arm still in the way. He’d apologized profusely and said it was a mistake, but the smirk on his face as he’d looked back at his friends proved that was a lie. I could admit that, even if only to myself. Just as I had to admit that Caleb’s protective instinct toward me made me tremble and want to fall into his arms to shelter in said protection.

“It’s not a big deal, Caleb,” I said, hoping he would finally believe me. “I know how to take care of myself.”

At least I’d thought I did. I’d convinced myself that it wasn’t an issue, it wasn’t as if he’d slapped me or beaten me down to the ground until I was unconscious, as my stepfather had done to my mother on too many occasions to count.

“It is a big deal because he’s hurting you,” he insisted. “I told you I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“Why should you even care?” I asked one of the many questions that had been on my mind for the last week or so where Caleb was concerned. “I’m not your responsibility.”

But I sure did like that he felt like I was, that he wanted to take care of me even though it was unnecessary. I also liked the feeling of his fingers on my skin, the warmth from his body transferring slowly into mine. He must have read my mind because he rewarded me by cupping my face in both hands. It was a possessive move so I should have backed away, should have felt compelled to run as I often did whenever Dex came closer than I liked. Instead, all I could feel was the balminess, the heat spreading slowly throughout my body as if his hands were actually implanting it there.

“He’s bad, Zoe. He will continue to hurt you if you let him, if I let him.” His lips clenched and he shook his head slightly. “You’re right, I shouldn’t care, but I do.”

And he didn’t like that fact. I could see it in his eyes, the disappointment. I figured it was for feeling the way he shouldn’t, only because I was feeling a little of that myself. I shouldn’t be attracted to this meddling, mysterious guy and he shouldn’t give a damn about some neurotic and confused girl.

“I can take care of myself,” I told him again. “I’ve been doing it for a long time now.”

At first he looked like he wanted to say something else. Then his head lowered, he came closer, and for one glorious instant I thought he was going to kiss me.

I jumped at the sound of the car horn and Caleb swore, pulling his hands away from my face. The warmth was immediately missed and as I looked across the parking lot to see Hanna jumping out of her car I actually wanted to scream for her to go back, to not have beeped that horn or pulled up in this parking lot. Because the truth was, I wanted Caleb to kiss me, more than I wanted anything else at that moment.

I was stepping back from Caleb, who had already put distance between us, when Hanna came running over.

“Are you okay?” she asked me, taking hold of my shoulders like she planned to shake an answer out of me.

“I’m fine,” I tried to tell her but she let me go so fast to whirl on Caleb I couldn’t get out another word.

“You do not put your hands on her!” she yelled in his face. “She already told you she has a boyfriend. What the hell’s wrong with you? You some kind of crazy-assed stalker?”

“Stop it,” I said finally, trying to pull her away as she grabbed Caleb’s shirt as if to emphasize her words. For his part, Caleb hadn’t moved and only gave her a mildly annoyed look in response.

Actually, he’d stopped looking at her and was now watching me. He wanted to see what I was going to do, what I was going to say. Would I agree with Hanna or would I admit I wanted his hands on me, wanted his lips on mine?

“He wasn’t bothering me, Hanna,” I told her, giving the sleeve of the thin jacket she wore another tug. “I’m okay.”

Caleb visibly blanched after I said that. His eyes blinked and he looked like he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. He only nodded to me, then slowly unclenched the fingers Hanna still had wrapped in his shirt, and gently pushed her away.

“Next time we’re calling the cops,” she told him, but with much less conviction than when she had been yelling at him.

Caleb turned then, walking across the parking lot. I watched him go, watched the set of his shoulders move with every stretch of his legs. I admired the curve of his butt in his jeans, the strength he exuded as he moved. It was beyond mesmerizing and sexy as hell. I wanted to go after him. I wanted that kiss.

I was going to find him and then I was going to kill him. There was no doubt in my mind, no talking myself down from the decision. He had crossed the line. It was that simple.

The moment I realized Dex and his sidekicks were rogues I should have chased them down and … what? Kill them because they were different from the other Shadow Shifters? For that matter, so was I. So I hadn’t gone after them, I hadn’t decided that I was the judge and jury and inflicted action on those shifters because they hadn’t done anything wrong, yet.

The sound of Zoe’s gasp when I touched her arm, the pain that radiated from her temples down to her jawline, ripped straight through to my soul. My heart had actually stopped beating the second I realized I’d caused her pain. But I hadn’t caused it, only magnified it for the moment. And she had denied it.

The denial and defense of that bastard was another bitter pill to swallow. One that I had no choice but to digest for the moment. Her friend was a little intense, but I’d dealt with worse.

I sat in my apartment facing the window, staring out into darkness, had been in this position for more hours than I could count. This was how I thought, how I processed things within myself. Marta said it wasn’t healthy, that I needed to let someone in, let someone attempt to share my life, share my love. I loved Marta Sanchez with all my heart, but I disagreed. I had nothing to share and no love left to consider.

I did have continued thoughts of Zoe, of her smile though I’d never been privileged to one of them personally, or that interested and attentive stare and the soft lilt of her voice. When I woke up each morning I thought of her, when I went to sleep it was the same. I’d never thought of anyone like that before.

I’d also never planned an attack.

Sitting on the couch beside me, my cell phone vibrated. I didn’t want to look away from the dark, didn’t want a break in my concentration. But the vibrating continued, until I finally picked it up.

“Yeah?” I answered, having already looked at the screen and knowing who would be on the other end.

“It’s time.”

He said it solemnly, resolutely, like I should have been expecting this call at this very moment.

“I’m good here,” was my response. He should have expected it, should have known I wouldn’t agree. I never had.

“We need you, Caleb,” Brayden pressed.

I’d begun staring into the dark again, holding the phone to my ear but not giving him my total attention. It didn’t matter, just as the words I’d just stated wouldn’t matter. Brayden Sanchez had been born for one reason—to become a Shadow Shifter guard. He was a warrior through and through and even though he was the second born, he often led the three boys and one girl raised by the Sanchez couple.

“Your Assembly needs soldiers committed to them and to their cause. I am not one of them. I’m not one of you.”

I never had been, no matter how many times they called me their son or their brother, I knew it was all a lie.

“Cut the dramatic bullshit, Caleb, and get your ass to D.C. ASAP!”

This was Aidan, the oldest, the one they thought would lead. Only I knew how much Aidan actually despised the idea of following a preordained destiny. I’d championed him when he decided to finish college, to strive for something else. Not when I heard the news of him falling for some girl and getting hooked up in that mating crap the tribes preached and going back to D.C. finally to do their bidding. I’d wanted to punch him in the gut for that move.

Still, I had to smile at the sound of his voice. It had been too long since I’d talked to either of them.

“You talk to your mate like that?” I asked, blinking away my dark stare and letting a smile creep along my face.

I didn’t do that often either, really had no use for the action.

“Don’t talk about her until you meet her face-to-face,” Aidan replied. “Which means you have to get here like yesterday.”

“Nah,” I replied, laying my head back against the sofa. “Don’t think so.”

“Why? What are you doing wherever you are that’s so damned important?” Brayden asked. “What means more to you than your family?”

If I answered truthfully they’d show up at my door in about twenty minutes, tops. So I’d lie. I was getting used to doing that.

“I’m thousands of miles away trying to take care of my own shit,” I told them.

There were maybe two or three seconds of silence in which I knew I’d messed up big time.

“What’s going on?” Brayden asked immediately.

“You need backup?” was Aidan’s follow-up.

I let out a breath. “I got this,” was my reply.

“Doesn’t sound like it to me,” Aidan continued. “Is it male or female?”

I could lie again but that wouldn’t end the interrogation. Besides, as long as they had no idea where I was, or how close I actually was to them, how close I’d made a point of sticking to them without them knowing, it didn’t matter.

“Both.”

“Human?” Brayden continued.

“One of them,” I replied.

“Rogue?” Aidan all but screamed through the phone. “Where are you? We can be there in—”

“You can’t be anywhere but in that training facility about to take your finals. This is what you two were born for. It’s everything your parents ever wanted for you. I’m used to doing my own thing, nothing different about that this time.”

“I don’t believe you,” Brayden said. “You don’t sound normal.”

I chuckled at that. “I’m not normal on a good day, what makes now so different?”

“Man, I don’t even want to hear about you being half human, half shifter. You’re my brother and you’ve been trained to be as deadly as any one hundred percent shifter ever born,” Aidan continued.

“If you know all that you know I can handle whatever I’ve got going on,” I told him, feeling quite smug at the moment. “You two just get all certified and shit and then we’ll meet up and have a beer to celebrate. Tell Lidia no vodka for her.”

I hung up before they did because I didn’t want to hear any more arguments. I didn’t want to hear the love in Brayden’s voice as he talked about his mate, Lidia, the sister I never knew I wanted. I didn’t want to hear any more of their concern or hope for my return to the team we’d created as kids.

I just wanted to be on my own, to deal with the demons that lived within me through no fault of my own. I didn’t want to be a part of a team or a family and I didn’t want to be drawn to this girl.

And yet, on more than one of these fronts, I was, and I didn’t know if I had the power to stop it.

Zoe would be at work tonight and Dex would most likely appear. When he did I would be right here, to get rid of him once and for all.

I cut the engine and the lights and reached over to the passenger seat to grab my jacket before getting out of the truck. I wasn’t cold, was actually enjoying the chill in the air but didn’t want the patrons of the bar to see the gun I had stuffed in the back of my pants. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it, hoped that Dex would listen to reason, or good common sense. If not …

Just as I was heading to the front door of the bar I heard noises coming from around the back of the building. The heightened senses of a Shadow Shifter tended to annoy me, and I usually could ignore them, but not this time. There was laughter with an edge to it that I immediately recognized, maybe because noticing the pain in Zoe’s arm yesterday had put me in a hunting mood.

I moved around to the back of the building, taking slow, almost predatory steps. Passing the Dumpster and the two feral cats hanging around it, I made my way to the back. I frowned as I moved because the scents back here were comingling—rotting trash, discarded liquor bottles, urine, and rogue. My fists clenched as my nostrils flared and I turned the corner.

Dex had Zoe pinned to the wall, his face close to hers. Zoe had her hands on Dex’s chest as she attempted once, twice, to push him away. Dex didn’t budge. She pushed harder and he grabbed her by the wrists. And that was enough. I was beside them in no time, grabbing Dex by the collar and pulling him off her. He stumbled back, struggling until I let him break free. My attention immediately went to Zoe.

“Are you okay?” I asked, going to her and touching her shoulders lightly.

She jerked away from my grasp, giving me a look as if I’d been the one roughhousing her. To say I was a little confused would be an understatement.

“He was hurting you,” I replied, feeling even more stupid than I had two seconds ago, if that was possible.

“It’s none of your business!” she yelled. “I’m none of your business!”

From behind I could hear laughter, the same as I had a few moments ago. His eyes were dark when I turned to face him, almost black and I knew that any second now they would switch totally to the eyes of a cat. The putrid stench of betrayal rogues carry with them blanketed the area like one of those itchy-ass wool throws. I rolled my shoulders, readying my body for anything—the fight or the shift, whichever was necessary.

“You heard what the human said.” Dex frowned at me like he knew what I was about to do and conveying that he was also down for the fight.

At his sides his fingers wiggled, no doubt feeling the sting of trying to hold back his claws. Mine didn’t hurt at all. I’d mastered keeping as much of my shifter traits controlled and bound as possible. The pronounced smell, hearing, and vision were a little harder to suppress, but I’d learned ways to ignore them.

“Stop it!” Zoe yelled, coming between us.

She turned to me, her fiery gaze locking with mine.

“I told you this was not your concern. I can handle my own business. So you should go.”

Dex laughed and inside my cat raged. I almost stumbled forward with the force it used in its attempt to break free. I didn’t want to hurt Zoe, couldn’t live with myself if I did. But I definitely wanted to kill Dex for putting his dirty hands on her. The cat inside wanted to be the one to lock its jaws around his neck and hold on until death was the only option.

Zoe was in the way.

I couldn’t shift in front of her, couldn’t risk her knowing how screwed up I really was. I took a deep breath, willing the cat to stand down, taking a couple of physical and mental steps back.

“We’ll meet again,” I said, pointing past Zoe to where a smiling Dex still stood.

“Fuck off, half-breed!” he said.

I moved forward again only to feel the instant sting of heat as Zoe put her palms on my chest. Now I was the one she was attempting to push away. The cat inside me bared its teeth, rearing back at her touch as heat spread throughout my chest. My entire body shook with the two feuding entities. To save us both possibly, I pushed her arms away. “Fine, if you don’t want my help, let him beat you to death. I don’t care!”

I was walking away without looking back, refusing to answer the burning desire to protect her, to keep her safe. It just wasn’t possible to save somebody that didn’t want to be saved, my mind screamed to no avail. I kept right on walking, every step heavier than the last until I was safe in my truck, slamming my palms onto the steering wheel repeatedly.

She wasn’t my concern, she wasn’t my girlfriend. I didn’t have a girlfriend and damn sure didn’t want one. I’d never even been interested enough in another female to go so far as to protect her, especially not from her own boyfriend. That’s just not what I did, it wasn’t how I was made. I was sure my brothers were protective as hell over their mates, but Zoe wasn’t my mate, she wasn’t anybody. Or she shouldn’t have been.

I jammed my key into the ignition and started my truck thinking this would be the last damned time I’d be at this bar. There was nothing for me here, nothing and nobody. There never had been.

It was a horrible flashback. As I stood, still reeling from Caleb’s appearance and his subsequent departure at my request, Dex struck.

In the past weeks that I’d known him he’d been very nice, kind of subdued in a lone biker type of way, but definitely a leader among his friends. He’d taken me on simple dates, nothing that I’d find in a romance novel, but fun things all the same. I didn’t feel this out-of-this-world attraction to him, but I continued to go out with him believing that the spark would eventually appear. I’d read enough books to know that it wouldn’t, especially not now.

Dex’s hand fisted in my hair, pulling me back to him all the while yelling something about shadows and minding their own business, and more incoherent words I would later try to decipher. Right now the pain was excruciating, shooting through my skull like a million knives were being pierced into my skin. I didn’t scream though, didn’t have any intention of giving him that sadistic pleasure. For a few seconds my arms just flailed as I tripped over my feet trying to keep from falling to the ground as he pulled me. We were going deeper behind the bar to where there was a gate and then an incline leading into a dark copse of trees that faced the highway on its other side. I knew if he got me down there it would be over.

I reached back then, grabbing his hands to try and still some of the force he was exerting. He was still mumbling something about shifts and revenge and whatever, I stopped listening. All I could hear now was the pounding of my heart as my brain went into overdrive trying to figure out what to do, how to save my life.

The scene was all too familiar to me. How many times had my stepfather dragged my mom up the stairs and back down again? How many times had he used his grip on her hair to bang her head into the side of the bathtub or the corner of the dresser? It was a wonder she still lived and sometimes when I used to stand and stare at her, I got the impression that she really didn’t. That maybe, she thought death would be better. But then he’d take that out on us and she didn’t want that, she’d never wanted that.

The rage I felt for what my mother had gone through and what she might still be going through boiled inside me like piping hot lava and somehow, I twisted in his grasp so that I was now facing him. In this position I could plant my feet on the asphalt and at least fight against his force.

“Don’t fuck with me, bitch! This is all your fault!” he screamed at me.

I didn’t listen to the words, couldn’t afford to be distracted from the matter at hand. I scratched his wrists until I could feel my short nails sinking into his flesh, the moistness of his blood becoming embedded in their length. I couldn’t get him to let me go. I tried shaking my way free but that only caused me more pain.

The panic of helplessness sliced through my chest and like a video on rewind, I was back in my bedroom when I was twelve years old and my stepfather had come inside after I’d gone to bed. He’d yanked the covers off me then roughly pushed my nightgown up past my hips. I hadn’t known what to do, only knew that fear was a nasty taste like bile in my throat and I hated it. So I kicked and swung until he finally stumbled back after one lucky shot had given him a bloody nose. Before he could come at me again I jumped off the bed and kicked him again, this time in the bulge I’d seen between his legs. He’d run out of my room then, groaning and calling me all kinds of vile names, but he never came back again. But whenever he beat my mother from that point on he would look to see if I was in the room, locking gazes with mine as if he wished he were beating me that way. To this day I’ll never understand why he didn’t come back and beat the hell out of me the way he did my mother.

I stopped fighting Dex back then, just focused on keeping my feet firmly planted for another second or so. My lack of movement must have thrown him off. No, that had been his cell phone ringing. It had been ringing on and off since Caleb had left us alone but this was the first time Dex had attempted to answer it. He released one hand from my hair and I knew that was the only opportunity I was going to get. The moment I heard him speak into the phone I rammed my head into his groin with all the strength I could muster.

My hair was instantly freed as Dex stumbled back, dropping his cell phone. I didn’t wait for any more reaction but turned and ran as if the devil himself were chasing me.

Apparently that wasn’t fast enough because in the next second I felt fingers wrap around my calf, pulling me down. I fell onto the ground, using my hands to break the fall and to keep from busting my face wide open. Turning quickly I began kicking to get him off my leg. My foot caught the side of his face and he reared back, releasing me again. I stood quickly, knowing what would happen if he got up and I stayed down. I was going to run again, but this time I paused and stomped Dex right in the neck. He howled like something unearthly and I did it again, adrenaline racing through my body like fresh blood.

Then common sense kicked in and I got the hell out of there. The pain didn’t hit me until I’d rounded the building. I could see the door to the bar and was aiming for it, but pain escalating from my ankle up to my thigh stopped me and I crumpled to the ground.

All I could remember thinking was, please don’t let him come up behind me, but I couldn’t stop myself from falling, couldn’t stop the pain from taking its ugly hold.

I’d just pulled out of the parking spot, finally. Too many conflicting emotions had been battling through my head, keeping my foot off the gas and the truck stuck in park. Eventually, I’d kicked myself in the ass enough to say it was done and put the truck in drive so I could get as far away from this bar as I possibly could.

That’s when I saw her.

She rounded the corner like a flash of light, her torn white shirt almost glowing in the night. She didn’t look back, just kept going which instantly told me she was on the run. But I didn’t give a damn. This was her fight as she’d so decisively put it for me one last time. I wasn’t stopping because I no longer gave a rat’s ass what happened to Zoe.

The second she went down all my bravado went out the window. I slammed on the brakes and tried to jump out of the truck before I’d even gotten the door all the way open. Over the hood of the truck I went sliding, coming down with a thump on the other side and jumping onto the sidewalk just before her head could hit the concrete.

“Zoe, goddammit! You’re so damned hardheaded,” I scolded, all the while lifting her into my arms.

“I don’t want you to hold me. I want you to let me go so I can get in my car and go home,” she whispered, her head falling into my chest so her words were a warm whisper over my neck.

My teeth clenched but I didn’t waver. “Not this time, menina. Not this time.” I said the words while I moved.

Opening the passenger-side door I gently sat her on the seat and fastened the seat belt around her.

“He’ll come for me. I heard him yelling that he would come for me,” she was saying, her head lying back on the headrest, eyes barely opened.

When I looked at her to respond her face was contorted in pain and I growled low and deep, the anger rippling through both me and the cat too much to ignore.

“Shh, menina, I’ve got you,” I told her then rounded the truck again and climbed into the driver’s seat.

I slammed the truck into gear and pressed the gas, turning to get out of the parking lot as fast as I could. I didn’t look in my rearview mirror because I knew what I would see if I did. There was a cat back there, one angry jaguar declaring war on me and on Zoe. “Game on, you sonofabitch,” I mumbled to myself.

After the first or second traffic light I’d sped through Zoe moaned and leaned forward in her seat. She was rubbing her right ankle and cursing.

I reached over, putting a hand on her shoulder and tried to ease her back, but she jerked away instead.

“It’s probably a bad sprain and not a break. I can take you to the emergency room …” I told her, trying to ignore the sting of her rejecting my touch, once again.

“No!” she yelled and grabbed my arm. “No hospitals!”

She was squeezing my arm so tightly, her eyes had widened, and the scent of cold, hard fear permeated the air.

“Okay, okay. No hospitals. I’ll take you back to your place then.”

Her grip didn’t lessen but she looked away from me. “He’ll come there,” she spoke quietly.

Fear was thick and choking me into action. So she was not only afraid of that jackass coming for her again at her apartment, but apparently of hospitals as well.

“I won’t take you to your place then,” I told her, using my free hand to touch her cheek, turning her slowly so that she was once again looking at me. “But I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

I didn’t think, didn’t consider, didn’t waver, but drove straight to my apartment.

His hands were like magic, gentle and soothing, careful and steady. I lay on his couch, which was a really soft material that I sank into as soon as he carried me through the door and set me here. I’d been to a few bachelor pads in my time and this one definitely did not qualify. Though the furniture was sparse, what was here, i.e., the couch, was really nice. There were heavy curtains at the window that were probably room-darkening during the day. I figured it was okay that he didn’t like sunlight. That didn’t automatically place him in the vampire/serial killer column.

I noticed the walls were blank as he went to the other end of the couch to switch on another lamp. He had one near the door and this one, and that was all as far as I could see. He also had the couch and a humungous television directly across from it. There was a rug on the floor that looked fancy and possibly expensive and I wondered how it would feel beneath my bare feet. The altercation with Dex may have rattled my mind a bit because I couldn’t control the path my thoughts were taking, and they were really running rampant.

My heart rate had finally returned to normal, but that didn’t mean I was mentally anywhere near that point. My hands still shook and I felt like any minute now someone was going to take a swing at me. But I wasn’t with Dex anymore. I was with Caleb and he was different. At least I’d felt in my soul that he was from the first time I’d seen him.

He’d seemed so lonely, so standoffish, but now, he appeared to be just what I needed. His fingers touched me gently and although there was pain from the injury, there was also warmth from him. Always the heat when he was near and now that he was actually touching me, my mind whirled with emotions like fear, regret, anxiety, and lust. The last was more prominent especially as he was close to my feet now, his back facing me.

“I need to get this shoe off,” he stated.

I’d been so absorbed in my surroundings and my rampant feelings, and distracted by his continued touch that I waited a beat before replying, “Oh, okay.”

It was a good thing I knew I had on good socks today. Usually when I slipped on my Uggs I didn’t bother with socks. The moment I heard him chuckle I remembered which ones I’d put on today.

“Hello Kitty?” he said, looking over his shoulder to me.

It was such a sexy look, his dark eyes raking over me, the corner of his mouth slightly lifted and that damned beard that was never too long, just a shadow that drove me crazy with wanting to rub my fingers along his jaw.

At first the look had been playful, for as much as a guy like Caleb could pull that off. His thick brows had arched, his lips turning up ever so slightly at the ends, like he almost wanted to smile. But as our gazes held his expression changed. His eyes grew darker—like the brown turned to black—his jaw was set, a muscle twitching on the left side. It was an intense look, one that made me very aware of the fact that I was lying on his couch and he was leaning over me, his hands rubbing along my skin.

I cleared my throat and searched for a whimsical reply. “They were clean,” was the best that I could do.

Caleb shook his head then looked back to my feet and continued what he was doing, which consisted of him peeling off the pink-and-white ankle sock and touching my bare foot. Now, besides the little gasp at the spark of pain elicited by his tilting my ankle in the other direction, the feel of his hand at the ball of my foot was dreamy. “Yeah,” I said, dreamily, and that’s exactly what I meant.

My eyes closed for a couple of seconds and I almost moaned, his touch was so gentle and yet strong enough to have my breath catching.

“This needs to be wrapped. I think I’ve got a bandage in my room. And then you need ice.”

He was talking but it was about my ankle and not about how he was making me feel so I barely registered all of his words. There was a tug-of-war going on for my attention, the radiating pain from my ankle and the quickly building desire sparked by Caleb’s closeness. So, yeah, the ice sounded good right about now.

When he walked away I felt like a total flake for having these continuous thoughts about how good his hands felt on me in the midst of tonight’s events. On top of that I knew I had to look awful. I attempted to pat down my hair, which I knew had to be all over the place. As if a greater entity was sending a signal of how ridiculous my thoughts had become, razor-sharp pain shot straight through to my skull, the stinging of my tender scalp bringing tears to my eyes. For what seemed like forever I just lay there with my eyes closed, taking shallow breaths and waiting for the pain to subside.

“You need a painkiller.” Caleb’s deep voice sounded through the fog of aching I was currently visiting.

“Uh hmm,” was my best reply. I felt like I needed so many things right at this moment. A painkiller would most likely help, then I’d at least be pain free while trying to get a grip on the growing arousal.

“Let me take care of your ankle and then I’ll get them,” he said.

I kept my eyes closed even though I did enjoy watching him move around like he was some sexy-assed paramedic. My entire body was in pain from the exertion of battling with Dex. That whole scenario brought back other memories, ones I’d never wanted to think about again, ones that still weighed heavily in the center of my chest.

In the next moments Caleb was handing me a glass and pills, while a large Ziploc bag was tucked under his arm. “Ice for your foot and orange juice and painkillers for you,” he instructed.

“You’re an answer to my prayers,” I blurted out.

He looked kind of uncomfortable with those words, as he should be, I guess. I just took the glass of juice and tossed the pills into my mouth, being careful not to look at his face again.

Caleb came closer, his Dr. Martens boots thumping lightly over the hardwood floors as he stood right over me. If I looked up—which it took all the strength I had left not to do—I would be on a first-name basis with his crotch. That thought sent serious thrills throughout my body. And then, he knelt down beside me, giving me that serious—serious as in demeanor and as in seriously hot as hell—look. I gulped down enough juice to swallow the pills then another gulp just to make sure my mouth didn’t go dry staring at him.

“Do you need anything else?” he asked. “Extra pillows or a blanket?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m fine,” I replied, reaching out to place the glass on the floor. There was no coffee table but since this was a guy’s house I didn’t really expect one.

“I think I know what happened to you, but I’d like for you to tell me,” he said.

“Why?” I couldn’t help but ask the question because I’d been wondering why he seemed to be everywhere I was lately, or more likely everywhere I was when I needed him to be. “I mean, all I know about you is that your name is Caleb and that you like to come to the bar to drink Blue Moon and eat hot wings. I’m sitting in your apartment and I probably shouldn’t be because maybe you’re a serial killer or something.” I sighed, impatient because the pain pills hadn’t kicked in yet and because I didn’t know what to say to him without saying how much I wanted him.

The next thing I felt was Caleb’s fingers lightly moving over my forehead, then massaging my temples.

“Just relax,” he said. “Relax and know that I’m not a serial killer and that all I want is to keep you safe.”

My eyes fluttered and I licked my lips. “I want to believe you but I know I shouldn’t. I’m too trusting, that’s what Hanna says.”

“Hanna’s a little rough around the edges,” he replied.

“She’s my only friend,” I said in defense.

He stopped massaging my temples and instantly I wanted to take the words back so he would resume.

The look on his face was filled with a little confusion and a lot of pity and in the next instant I felt like sinking so deep into the comfortable cushions of the couch that he would no longer see me.

“What about your family?” he asked.

I hadn’t had anyone ask me that in a long time. After graduating from high school I noticed how less frequently I was asked about my parents or siblings. I figured adults had other things to worry about. So I remained quiet for a moment, wondering what I should say, if I should lie, if I should just brush him off. It wasn’t any of his business, the dysfunctional nuthouse that I’d come from. It was nobody’s business. And dammit, just thinking about it all had tears burning my eyes once more. I’d cried so much as a little girl, in the dark corner of my room as my brother and sister slept, I started to believe there were no tears left once I grew older. When I finally left that house I declared to never shed another tear. Tonight, it seemed I was doomed to break that vow.

“I’m not a coward,” I heard myself saying. “And I’m not some guy’s punching bag. I never will be.”

Caleb’s fingers traced a feather-like path down the sides of my face. “You shouldn’t be.”

His words were spoken quietly, still they held so much power, so much authority I had to open my eyes, to look up at him then, trying desperately to blink away those pesky tears. Caleb was staring right at me, his face so close to mine his breath warmed my cheeks. It was so intense, this look he was giving me, these feelings I was experiencing, that I felt like I had to tell him, like I owed him some sort of explanation for ending up on his couch battered and bruised.

“Long story short, Dex was being an ass inside the bar. I went outside with him only because I was tired of making a scene. I should have seen it coming, should have recognized the signs,” I said, feeling the sting of tears against my eyes and hating the inevitability of crying in front of this guy. “He was going to … going to …”

I had to stop, had to take a minute to breathe and just accept what had almost happened, to me of all people. I’d lived this bull crap most of my life and swore I’d never, ever, be in this predicament, and now look at me.

“I refused to let him hurt me anymore,” I said so quietly I didn’t know if Caleb had even heard me.

“He won’t,” was Caleb’s whispered response. “He won’t.”

I knew that tone. No matter how quiet and how lovely his voice sounded at this pitch, I knew what was lacing those words. Pity. And I hated it.

I tried to sit up, also hating that the room did a little tilt-a-whirl as a result.

“Whoa, slow down,” Caleb said, bracing his hands on my shoulders to keep me down.

I blinked, tried desperately to focus on his face and not the background that was still spinning a bit.

“I sprained my ankle kicking him in the neck after I finally got away from him. I didn’t lie down and let him beat me.” I took a quick breath because it felt like those few words had taken all the air out of me. “And I didn’t want to go home because I knew he’d come there looking for me. I’m really not in the mood for more fighting and I’m in less of a mood to have the cops in my face.”

Caleb only nodded in response to my diatribe. I couldn’t tell if he believed me or was just humoring me because he was quiet and his face alone didn’t give anything away.

I lay back against the cushions, closing my eyes again and holding my breath as I waited for him to respond. He was probably going to think I was some type of lunatic female, kicking guys in the neck. Or he was going to think he didn’t need to be all “knight in shining armor” with me because I could obviously take care of myself. Either way his next step would surely be to pick me up and deposit me outside on the front steps of this gorgeous duplex where he lived on the top floor.

But that’s not what happened …

His fingers raked through my hair, the blunt tips rubbing softly along my scalp. Tentatively I opened my eyes and stared directly into his as he was even closer to me now, so close the tip of his nose brushed over mine as he tilted his head and … finally, touched his lips to mine.

My eyes fluttered closed once more and I imagined I was between the pages of one of my romance novels, that the warm lips pressing against mine were of my hero. He—my hero—would hold still there, just enjoying the contact … no, he, Caleb’s tongue demanded entrance and I didn’t resist. With a flash of heat that pierced all the way down to my crotch his tongue rubbed against mine. I lifted my arms to wrap around his neck and pulled him closer. I wanted so much more of this because reality was winning hands-down over my romantic imagination.

When he pulled away we were both out of breath, but he spoke first.

“I’m sorry.” His words were a whisper over my face.

“No. No, don’t be,” I replied immediately. “I wanted you to kiss me.” Admitting that seemed oddly easier than admitting that I’d tried to crush Dex’s larynx with my foot.

Pulling back slightly, Caleb gave me that look, the one where the left side of his mouth lifted in an almost smile and his deep brown eyes looked soft instead of foreboding. “I wasn’t apologizing for kissing you.”

“Oh.” Now didn’t that make me feel like a big idiot?

“I was apologizing for not putting a stop to him sooner. I should have as soon as I figured out what he was,” he finished.

“What he was?”

Caleb’s lips thinned, his brow wrinkling as he pulled away.

“You shouldn’t go back to your place,” he continued. “That was smart of you not to want to. He might try to find you there. I’ll go and get whatever you need, just make me a list.”

He’d stood while he was talking, moving away from me. The loss was staggering. I wanted him back here on this couch with me, I wanted his hands in my hair, his lips on mine. Okay, I guess all those years of never having anything but pain and grief turned me into a selfish brat because all I could think about was what I wanted right now.

“No! You shouldn’t go there.” I was pulling myself up on the couch, ignoring the pain and letting my left leg fall to the floor. I totally forgot about the condition of the right one and pulled that one along too. The ice fell and pain radiated throughout every part of me that could feel. I yelled, couldn’t help it, and Caleb came running.

“What are you doing?” he asked, hurrying back into the room and grabbing the ice pack.

“I don’t want you to go there alone. What if Dex and his friends are there?”

Caleb smiled this time, an eerie kind of smile that might have scared me had I not already seen the gentle side of him.

“All I want you to worry about is getting some rest and keeping the pressure off this ankle.” He lifted my legs again, positioning the right one on the pillow he’d brought out from his bedroom. Once again, he put the ice pack on top of my ankle and looked at me sternly. “Do not move until I get back.”

“What if I have to go to the bathroom?”

“Hold it,” he replied. Then he winked at me and my nipples instantly grew hard. “Down that hallway to your left.”

I couldn’t speak. Well, I had to when he asked for my house keys and what I wanted him to pick up for me. If I was embarrassed at my admission to him about my kinda-sort-of abusive ex-boyfriend that I’d just injured, then telling him which drawer my panties and bras were in was mortifying. Absolutely so as I saw him write the word “thong” on the notepad he’d been holding, I covered my eyes and groaned.

Her taste filled me even as I drove through the dark city streets with murder on my mind. I loved the flavor and hated the feeling. It was like fingers drumming up my spine, the beast within moving, awakening, readying itself for battle. Clenching my teeth so hard my temples throbbed didn’t help, grasping the steering wheel with all my strength also did nothing but press the animal further, rubbing against its already brewing rage.

It had never been this way before. I’d never felt so ready to hunt and to kill my prey. If I let myself I could probably taste the blood of the rogue I wanted to destroy. It would be such a simple task as they lacked the focus and intensity to their fighting that Shadows properly trained possessed. Since the rogues had defected from the tribes to follow the now infamous Sabar Tavares, they relied only on him for their guidance. Considering Sabar was a sadistic killer, it stood to reason the extent of their training was to kill first and never ask questions.

That worked fine for me, especially tonight. I wanted Dex to be at Zoe’s place. I wanted him to be there waiting, expecting her and getting me instead. Oh how I wanted that to happen.

Some higher being obviously had other ideas.

I parked across the street from the run-down old house on the end. I’d seen it before one night when I’d followed Zoe home, curious to know as much as I could about a female that I shouldn’t be at all interested in. She hadn’t even asked why I only needed her key and not for her to give me the address to her place. Maybe because she was in pain, or maybe it was because of our kiss.

That kiss.

I’d kissed a fair share of females. Well, probably not as many as my brothers because entanglements really weren’t my thing, even if they were just physical. I was the proverbial loner, to the fifth power. But I was still a guy, a guy mixed with Shadow Shifter blood that made my libido ten times more active than a normal guy my age—which was saying a lot. I had urges and when they became too strong to ignore, I acted on them. Then I moved on.

Zoe seemed like more than an urge and that worried me.

Her door sitting wide open with light pouring out into the hallway also worried me. But this was a good kind of worry, it meant that Dex was there.

I stepped into the room with thoughts of how I would kill his sorry ass fresh in my mind. The complete disarray of her furniture and other items did not shock me. Rogues were unstable creatures, hence the reason they defected from the tribe in the first place. They had no sense of decency or respect for rules, whether human or shifter. So trashing her place would have been a game to them, a vicious message sent by Dex to the female he planned to use and later kill. That thought had my fists clenching at my sides as I moved from the open area of the room to the small bathroom all the way in the back.

“Dammit!” I cursed and banged a fist into the wall to find the space empty.

I should have known, there was no stench, but sometimes it was masked when my own emotions were taking over. I had my own instabilities due to my half-breed nature, another reason I knew I didn’t belong with the tribes.

Moving back out into the room I went to the dresser where Zoe said her things were and found what personal items I could, throwing them into one of those recyclable grocery bags that was lying on the floor. Just as I was about to walk out the door my phone vibrated.

I had to shift a little to adjust the bags I was carrying with all Zoe’s minor necessities, as she’d called them, inside. When I finally looked at the screen I couldn’t help but smile. It was a text from Zoe. I’d given her my number before leaving the house, instructing her to call me if she needed anything.

Thx for being a good guy & not a serial killer. Z

She thought I was a good guy. I had a little trouble with that concept considering how I’d come to be on this earth. The Sanchezes would say that was foolish thinking on my part, that what happened between my biological parents had absolutely nothing to do with me. But, yeah, it sort of did, since I was the one who’d been left here to carry the memories along like bad breath. So seeing these words on my screen from the female I’d been just a little obsessed with over the last few weeks felt damned good.

Walking down the stairs, I left the place where Zoe would never return. She needed, no she deserved, something much better than this run-down spot, and this was before someone had just about destroyed the place. That someone had been Dex and his boys, I knew that without a doubt and wanted to crush the three of them for this infraction alone.

I also wanted to hurry back to my place, to Zoe, who looked way too perfect sitting in my living room. Taking care of her had come naturally, even though I’d never taken care of anyone in my life before. I’d never been overly concerned with anyone, but me. The Sanchezes as an extended family had done their job, but my demons were my own. Even those demons hadn’t allowed me to shy away from her. That fact alone should have told me something.

My heart just about stopped when I entered my apartment and found her gone.

Dropping her bags in the center of the floor I turned in a slow, complete circle looking around at every inch of the living/dining room area for signs of intruders. I inhaled deeply, let it out slowly, reaching for every part of me that was Shadow Shifter for better access to details.

Then I heard water running. My head shot up and turned to the right. The water was coming from the bathroom. Zoe was taking a shower.

Relief washed over me in heavy waves as I walked in that direction, not for one moment thinking that maybe I shouldn’t go in there. I opened the door and felt a clenching in my chest as I stepped into the steam-filled room. Her skirt and shirt were on the floor, along with her underwear—which I could ignore only because I’d already had my hands on the pieces of clothing that had been closest to her body while I was in her room. The urge was still there but I was able to push it aside because the thought of her being naked and just a few feet away from me had taken over.

The water switched off the moment I reached out for the door handle. I don’t know what I was thinking of doing or what I intended to say, “Ah, hey, I would have liked to take a shower with you” didn’t really seem appropriate. By that definition my being in here while she was showering probably wasn’t either, but only an otherworldly event could move me from this spot at this moment.

She pushed the door open and just before I could really take in all her gorgeous nudity, she stumbled. Reflexes on overdrive, I reached out and wrapped my arms around her wet waist to hold her upright.

“Dammit!” she exclaimed trying to push away from me, but the slippery shower stall, plus standing on one foot, didn’t actually equal success. “I was doing so good up until this point.”

“Then my timing is perfect,” I said, bending slightly so I could lift her into my arms.

She stiffened in my arms immediately, dropping her arms in an attempt to cover the good parts, but I’d seen them and my body was reacting, regardless. Still, I kept my eyes on hers now as I moved us out of the bathroom.

“You should have waited for me to get back.”

“I felt icky,” was her reply.

I nodded. Females usually didn’t like to feel “icky” so I understood. I also understood how good she felt in my arms. I cradled her closer, loving the slightness of her weight in my arms, the fresh smell of her skin, and the immediate aroma of her arousal. That just about drove me crazy and I gritted my teeth to try and hold back on my cat’s quick reaction to that scent.

I took her straight to my room and put her on my bed, where she promptly grabbed up the comforter to wrap around her still-wet and very deliciously naked body. The action was pointless as the sight of her naked body with droplets of water clinging to every delectable spot would now and forevermore be permanently emblazoned in my mind.

“Did you get my clothes? Was Dex there?” she asked after she’d tucked the comforter under both of her arms.

Her face looked fresh and pretty even if her eyes were a little bright with worry. She’d pulled her hair back into a loose bun that was now wet around the edges.

“No. He wasn’t,” I replied when I could think past the creamy tone of her skin. My fists clenched at the bruising on her neck and I turned away.

“If you want something to eat, I can fix it or we can order out. There’s a place down the street that has good cheesesteak egg rolls, if you like them.” I was talking a lot which was definitely not like me. I was also offering to cook for this female when I barely liked to cook for myself. Frustration at all these changes pounded against my temples.

“Um, I do like them,” she said. She sounded funny, like she was wondering why I’d turned my back on her.

But I was so filled with all these emotions, sticky and questionable ones ran alongside dangerous and deadly ones and I was afraid of where all of them might lead.

“Good. I’ll bring back a menu and rewrap your ankle, and ah, I’ll bring your clothes too.” I was out of the room before she could reply, stopping at the wall just outside my bedroom where I stood for a few seconds. My head fell back against the wall with a quiet thunk as I closed my eyes tightly, trying with everything I had inside me to focus, to put all this crap moving around inside me in some type of order. It wasn’t easy because all this human BS was intertwining with the shifter nonsense, pushing me right in the direction I’d never wanted to be. But I couldn’t actually run away from it, could I? My mother was a Shadow and my father a human. The conflict ran through my blood each and every day, why did I ever think my life could be any different?

He’d bandaged me, fed me, kissed me, and now he was tucking me into bed. His bed.

It was confusing to think of how I’d come to be in this place. Fearful to imagine that it might be the place where I’d always belonged. I’d crawled off that couch after Caleb left and into his bathroom, moving as best I could with the pain, but not feeling out of place or unwelcome at all. Even when he sat me on his bed—well, backtrack to the shower. I should have been embarrassed, should have felt so self-conscious about him seeing me naked, but I hadn’t.

Instead, inadequate was more what I’d felt while he held me in his arms, up against his muscled chest. For the record, I’d never stood totally naked with all the lights on in front of a guy before. I’d never wanted that type of attention or scrutiny. So having Caleb’s gaze on me as I stepped out of that shower was uncomfortable to say the very least. Seeing his gaze grow darker once more and the immediate arousal growing between his legs was rewarding in a very basic way. As he’d taken me to the bedroom I envisioned longtime lovers doing this without any modesty or hesitation.

Still, Caleb wasn’t my lover. In fact, what I could only call a lukewarm friendship at best had somehow led to him looking at me with undeniable desire in that bathroom—a desire that was 100 percent reciprocated. Attempting to cover myself had been the only defense I could come up with, not that my hands were actually covering very much. Then he’d put me down and practically run out of the room.

When he returned he seemed calmer, maybe because he’d tossed three grocery bags of clothes on the bed and immediately went back into the kitchen to get the carry-out menu and the bandages and ice. The painkillers had begun to kick in by then and I’d propped myself up on his bed and watched him as he rewrapped my ankle.

His hair was thick and dark as night. His fingers looked strong and capable, but touched me with feather-like care that made me want to weep. The food had been good, best cheesesteak egg rolls I’d ever had and then, I was tired. Or at least my body was. I yawned and Caleb said I should get some sleep. It was almost one a.m. and all things considered, I should have been tired as hell. But I wasn’t. I was edgy and needy and hating every second of it. Trying to sleep was the smarter option.

Caleb had moved from the chair he’d been sitting in to the bed so both of us could see another big-screen television bolted to the wall across from it. I could smell him as he reached around me to take away one of the pillows I’d been laying on. It was a masculine smell, subtle, yet mouthwatering all at the same time. His shirt was so tight it outlined his pectorals and the ridges of his six-pack. My fingers itched to reach up and touch him. He reached for the comforter and I jumped because I thought he was going to pull it down and strip my clothes off—a testament to my very overactive imagination.

For the life of me I had no idea why I was going through this, why I felt like a horny teenager, craving this guy’s touch like he was some type of drug. Considering my history, sex should be the furthest thing from my mind. But it wasn’t, especially not with Caleb. All I could think about was his hands, his lips, all over me.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Zoe,” he told me with the most honest look on his face I’d ever seen. “I would never hurt you.”

Of course he would think my stiff posture was because I was afraid. My ex-boyfriend had just assaulted me. Dex had been one big lie that I’d been too naïve to see. As for Caleb, well, I believed what he’d said. With every fiber of my being I believed him even though I didn’t know his last name. I rationalized that by the fact that I knew Dex’s last name was Tavares and that he worked with his uncle just outside of D.C. and that he planned to take over the business when his uncle retired—or I think he said died, but whatever. I knew all that about Dex and up until about two weeks ago I’d actually been considering having sex with him. The violence I’d seen in his eyes tonight had never surfaced before. I knew pertinent facts about him, but not that he would beat a female in a dark alley.

“I would never hurt you either,” I replied because the desolate sound in his voice said that maybe he’d been hurt at some point in his life as well. He probably needed that declaration just as much as I did.

There was silence and I thought he would say something else but he didn’t. Instead he continued touching the comforter, tucking it around me and beneath my arms tightly. I actually considered lifting them up and telling him to join me. But I wasn’t quite that bold, no matter the bravado I sometimes liked to put up. In the end, I’d seen enough abuse to know that giving of myself completely might not end up well for all parties involved.

Caleb reached for the television remote. When it was off and we were in complete darkness I thought for a second he would leave me there and go sleep on the couch. My chest constricted with the thought. But Caleb didn’t leave.

After a minute or so I felt the bed shift with his weight and knew he was lying next to me. One of the gutsier heroines I’d read about would have rolled over and snuggled close to him. The shy and confused heroine that usually comes around in the end would have insisted he sleep on the couch and when he refused would have crawled out to the living room on her own.

Me, I turned onto my side. I wasn’t bold enough to ask for what I wanted and wasn’t afraid enough to run away. Folding my arm beneath my head I contemplated how that should be construed as progress and tried to sleep.

“Why are you afraid of hospitals?” Caleb asked in the darkness of the room.

I wasn’t asleep, had thought I might never find that solace, but had no idea he’d known that. My voice cracked when I began, I figured it didn’t matter. “I spent a lot of time there when I was a kid so I’d rather avoid them as much as I possibly can now.”

“Were you sick?”

I wasn’t, but my mother and her husband were, and the situation they both put me, my brother, and sister in was. I thought that over for a minute before I finally replied because for some reason I didn’t want Caleb to think my mom was a bad person. Even though she did nothing to stop all the bad things that had happened, she was the only real parent I had.

“I took my mother to the emergency room a lot,” was all I’d decided to say for the moment.

I’d never told anyone about my mom or our home situation. Even when the school nurse had called me in to question me about a bruise on my brother’s face, I repeated the same story I’d told him to tell her. When the calls came to the house I used the money I’d earned from running errands for Mrs. Babarackus to pay one of the prostitutes that worked a couple blocks from our house to return the calls and give them the same report.

“Your mother was abused.”

He said it like he already knew so there was no need to pose it as a question. I didn’t know how him assuming that knowledge made me feel, so I considered what to say next. Denial? Outrage? Offense? Acquiescence?

I cleared my throat.

“I don’t know why she didn’t fight back. He was a bastard and we didn’t need him. She should have put him out or beat the hell out of him one good time. She should have …”

My words drifted and my lips clamped down tight. I closed my eyes but opened them quickly. Seeing the nothingness of the dark room was better than seeing images from that time—Mama’s black eyes, her broken arm, her busted lip.

In my mind, I wanted to pull away when Caleb’s hand touched my shoulder, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. The warmth of his body coming closer to mine was comforting and alarming all at the same time. While an hour ago I may have welcomed his touch, now, after the memories his questions had stirred, I didn’t know how to feel. A part of me wanted to get away, to find my own space once again and stay there until my shields were in place and I was ready to face the world.

Another part wanted to let go, to relax the tense muscles in my body against Caleb’s embrace and let all that had worried and scared me over the years, be washed away by the sound of his voice, the understanding in his tone.

“You fought back,” he whispered, his lips right up against my ear now.

He’d spooned himself against my back, his hand moving from my shoulder to around my waist where it rested on top of my own.

“I swore I’d never be in that place, never be with a guy that would abuse me.” I heard my voice, listened to the admissions I was making and couldn’t believe it. Why was I telling him all this?

“And you’re not in that place. You are no longer with that … that guy.”

Caleb’s hesitation had me smiling fleetingly. I didn’t want to consider Dex a guy either, more like an asshole. I put my hand over Caleb’s and let the warmth of his closeness lull me.

“Thank you for being there and for being so understanding even when I was acting like such a bitch toward you,” I told him honestly. “Maybe if I’d listened to you sooner it wouldn’t have come to this.”

“Then you wouldn’t be here with me now,” was his reply. “I wouldn’t be able to hold you close and promise to keep you safe. I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

His lips were warm against my ear, his tongue damp as it traced a line along my lobe. Desire was like a switch inside me and Caleb had his hand firmly on it, making me want him with the simplest of motions. No, kissing my ear didn’t seem that simple but that wasn’t the only thing he’d done to make me want him, almost need him, I’d venture to admit to myself.

I leaned back into his embrace, closed my eyes with the wonderful sensations of his tongue against my skin. Warmth escalated to full-blown heat as he pressed into me and all I could do was sigh.

“I don’t know why but I’ve been drawn to you from the first day I saw you,” he whispered between kisses.

His words drifted in the darkness of the room, falling to wrap around me as securely as his arms were. To hear him say what I’d been feeling for weeks was a relief that I wasn’t in this alone, at least not on the attraction end.

“Mmm, I don’t know why either, but I looked for you each night I came in to work,” I said since it seemed like tonight was for true confessions.

“You did?”

He seemed surprised and the kissing stopped so I opened my eyes. Rolling onto my back I looked up into Caleb’s eyes. Of course it was dark and really the only thing I could manage to see was the outline of his body leaning over mine, but there was something else. There was a spark of light, a glimmer of something golden. I blinked, believing I’d finally romanticized this moment enough that I was seeing things. With my eyes fully open again I reached up to touch his cheek.

My heart hammered in my chest and a small voice way in the back of my mind warned me not to say what I was thinking, not to put myself out there with this guy in this way. I didn’t listen. I couldn’t.

“I looked for you, Caleb. Every night I wanted to see you, even if I didn’t wait on your table and we didn’t speak, I still wanted to see you.”

“Why?”

Gone was the contained anger, the blatant candor of his voice, and now there was only this questioning and disbelief. Caleb was a great-looking guy, from his chiseled face and brooding dark looks to his perfect body and unruly hair. No way he didn’t believe that I’d wanted him; girls probably wanted him everywhere he went.

“Because you’re different,” I admitted, emotion clogging my throat so that I had to stop and swallow. “I don’t know how I knew from the start or in what ways exactly, I just know and I guess you could say I’m intrigued. I know that it was probably wrong to want you when I was with someone else, but I did. I mean, I do.”

Tears filled my eyes once more and I tried to figure out why. I wasn’t thinking of anything sad, wasn’t recalling what had happened with Dex. I was feeling a storm of sensations, venturing into unchartered waters and I was both anxious and afraid.

“You have no idea,” were his final words before his lips came crashing down over mine, taking me for a glorious ride of intense desire, barely restrained passion, pure and simple lust that had me panting in his arms.

This was wrong on so many levels, warning bells sounded loudly in my ears. I ignored them all and focused only on what I wanted, what I needed more than air itself.

I’d touched her hair, her face, her ears, her neck, but hadn’t touched anything else and the need burned deep inside me. So deep the cat stretched, chuffing inside impatiently. With as much gentleness as I could muster I moved so that one of my legs was between hers and my body was flush on top of her. Propping myself up on my elbows to keep from completely crushing her, I took the kiss deeper, loving the feel of her tongue brushing against mine, the hunger that was obviously inside her as well. Her hands were flat on my back, moving up and down, leaving paths of heat in their wake.

Out of breath and struggling for calm I pulled my lips away from hers, the task much harder than anything I’d ever done in my life. Her little gasp and the way her fingers clenched, grabbing my shirt, said she didn’t want me to leave any more than I wanted to. But I needed something else. With trembling fingers—they’d never done that before—I touched his fingerprints on her neck.

I had night vision, courtesy of my shifter heritage. I could see those prints as plainly as if all the lights in this room were on. A little growl rumbled in my chest. She turned her head so that she wasn’t looking at me, wasn’t watching me remember what he’d done to her. She thought I blamed her, but she was wrong. There was only one person here to blame, one bastard that would never get the opportunity to put his hands on her again.

Leaning forward I kissed each mark, lips closed, barely brushing over the softest skin I’d ever felt. My hands moved down, pushing the thin straps of the tank top she wore over her shoulders. I’d touched and I’d had a little taste and it wasn’t enough. Would anything where Zoe was concerned ever be enough?

I swear I wanted it to end, this deep pressing desire that had hung over me since the first day I saw her. It was like a plague, like a demon, chasing me with the intention of running me completely down to the ground. I felt it right between my shoulder blades even as I pushed the top of the tank top down and over her breasts. Tight nipples stared up at me as if they’d been waiting for me all their life. I blinked, tried to refocus but all that did was push the cat closer to the brink. I held my hand back, praying for no sharp claws. I wanted to touch her again, to hold those breasts in the palm of my hand. Instead I lowered my head once more and touched my tongue to her nipple. She hissed and arched her back. I continued, feeling the warmth of her skin against my tongue, loving the sweet taste of her, the sound of her, the scent that was all Zoe.

Her shirt had to go. The ripping sound echoed through the room. Before the material could totally escape my fingers I was onto the boxer shorts she’d put on that made her look entirely too sexy. She lifted her hips and I pushed them down. She was naked, her body like shimmering gold as she lay against the dark sheets on my bed.

“Caleb.” She said my name so softly I almost missed it.

I lifted my head to look at her, praying whatever she saw wouldn’t frighten her away.

Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears as she licked her lips. My heart constricted while my mouth watered. The cat inside roared, ready to stake its claim, while the man wasn’t sure of the next step, wasn’t sure there would be any turning back after he leapt.

“I want this,” she said quickly. “With you, I mean. I want this with you.”

And damn did I want this with her. Only I wasn’t totally sure what “this” was. It could be so many things, all of which would most likely not end well. I should fight this, I had been fighting it. But hell if I could any longer with her looking up at me the way she was, her soft body shifting ever so slightly beneath mine.

“I want this with you,” I replied and pulled my shirt over my head quickly.

When I was completely naked I was over her once more. She lifted her hands, planted her palms against my chest. I couldn’t help it, a growl rumbled in my chest with the heat of her touch. The cat wanted to pounce, to take, while the man wanted to possess.

“Condom,” she said.

I nodded and reached over to my nightstand to retrieve the box of condoms that had never been opened. Shifters didn’t need to practice safe sex, their complex DNA made them immune to most human diseases, sexually transmitted ones being at the top of the list. But part of me was human and so I’d purchased them on the off chance that in this one area my human side would prevail.

She shocked me by sitting up on the bed and reaching for the foil packet I held in my hand. I tore off the top and handed the open packet to her. She took it out and reached for me. My eyes closed and everything around me tilted. I felt dizzy, then, ensconced in heat as she rubbed the latex over my cock. Her fingers were gentle as her thumb rubbed the now-covered tip in exploration. She held me, both hands wrapped around my length, for endless seconds, looking at what she held as if it were the most cherished thing in her world.

My muscles tensed, my temples throbbing as I struggled for control, struggled to hold onto at least a modicum of dignity and refrained from releasing into her hands. The hands that eventually moved up, pressing against the tip of my dick, then down again to the base, once, no twice. On the third round I wanted to roar loud enough to break all the windows in the apartment. I wanted to lift her legs up onto my shoulders and pound into her until the confusion about getting involved with a human, about whether I was a shifter or a human myself, about the rogue that I wanted desperately to kill, was buried deep inside of her.

Instead, I managed a deep, steadying breath. I pushed her back on the bed, being more gentle with her than I’d ever imagined I could be. I did spread her legs wider then, in slow, deliberate motions. I wanted to see her, really see her this time. Her eyes were open wide, glazed with desire as she looked up at me. Her breasts high, pert, and lickable. Running my hands up and down her inner thighs I inhaled deeply, letting the scent of her essence invade my senses.

“You’re beautiful,” I told her. I wanted her to know this above anything else that she might know. “Absolutely beautiful,” I continued.

She trembled beneath me, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. My dick grew harder, teeth clenching tighter.

“Open for me,” I asked, all the while pushing her legs up until the soles of her feet rested on the bed.

When her legs once again fell to the side and I watched her, wanting her, needing her more than I needed to breathe, I knew I was in big trouble.

The moment I cradled the head of my cock against her dripping entrance she whispered my name. It fell like a drape over me and I shivered. Not totally pleased with that action I pressed lightly, stretching her to accommodate me, needing her to accept me, to accept all that was me.

My eyes closed of their own accord as I sank deeper inside of her, loving the constriction, the moistness, the total abandonment that flanked me. She’d stilled for a second and I followed suit, clenching my teeth as I waited, as we waited. When she said my name again, I opened my eyes to see her arms outstretched. Whatever I’d been before, however I’d felt about connections or entanglements or sex that was more than just sex, all of it dissipated as I leaned forward, going into her arms as her legs lifted, wrapping securely around my waist.

I was drowning, I knew it. My head was so deep under water I shouldn’t have been able to breathe. But I could and I could pump, in and out of her until she too was breathless.

With her arms wrapped tightly around my neck Zoe whispered into my ear, “I never wanted to with him. Only with you.”

“Only with you,” I replied without any thought at all. “Only you.”

When my release finally took over I wanted to roar, loud and long, to claim her and to keep her.

“What’s your last name?”

He chuckled.

“Is that a funny question?”

“It is when it’s the first thing you ask after finishing what we just finished,” he said.

His fingers were in my hair. I think he liked to rub along my scalp then pull his hands away until the strands ended, only to start the routine all over again. It was soothing because his touch was so light. My cheek was pressed against his chest, his heartbeat an echo in one of my ears.

“Well, after what we just did I think it makes sense that I know your last name. I probably should have known before we did what we did, but there it is.” I felt comfortable enough to joke with him. Actually I felt all floaty like the heroines said in romance books. The pain and soreness my body experienced a little more than six hours ago had vanished and was replaced by a lovely haze of delight. I was smiling against his chest as I thought.

“My name is Caleb Sanchez,” he offered finally.

“And where are you from?”

There was a pause.

“Where’s your family from?”

Another pause.

My fingers flattened on his chest, my cheesy grin slipping slightly. “Either my questions are too hard for you to answer or you really don’t like after-sex chitchat.” I laughed lightly after speaking but a pinch of worry began at the base of my spine. I moved slightly, pressing my body closer to his and hopefully dispelling it before it could spread.

“I was born in Brazil but I’ve never called any one place home. My parents are dead.”

And that was it. He didn’t verbalize that, but the implication hung in the air.

“So you speak Spanish?” was my next question. There was so much I wanted to know about him, so much I wanted to experience with him, but I got the impression taking baby steps would be more successful than the immediate barrage I was used to.

“Portuguese,” he replied.

I nodded. “I think other languages are sexy even though I never learned one.”

“Your school did not teach you another language?”

It was my turn to be quiet, my turn to resist telling him something about my past. “I didn’t go to school a lot during my high school years. My brother and sister needed me to take care of them and my mother, well, she needed someone period. Besides, I never really felt like I belonged there. Those students had much better home lives than I did. I envied what they had and despised what I didn’t, which made it almost impossible to walk up and down the halls with them day after day. So I didn’t. I wrote a note that I was being homeschooled and studied on my own for the last two years, then I took the GED exam and passed. Now I’m working at the bar, saving my tips so I can pay for at least two semesters at the community college up front.”

So much for not wanting to tell him too much. Between his earlier questions and now, Caleb Sanchez knew my entire life’s story. And I only knew his name.

He hugged me closer to him, kissing the top of my head. “Fitting in is not always the best path for everyone.”

So he hadn’t fit in either, that made me feel a little better. I still wanted to know more, wanted to press him until I had a picture of his high school years, his time growing up, and his parents. But Caleb’s breathing evened out as I thought of things and my eyes grew heavier. I was more comfortable lying here in Caleb’s arms than I’d been in … all my life. I refused to let the unanswered questions in my head interrupt the longing of my heart.

So I tempered the curiosity and accepted the feelings that engulfed me. I enjoyed the guy I was with and the woodsy scent of his body, the softness of his sheets, the dark quiet of his home. And then I slept, deep and solid unlike I’d ever been able to do before. It was glorious and all was absolutely perfect in my world.

“Get up!” Caleb whispered into my ear. “Get up, go into the bathroom, and get dressed. Lock the door and do not open it until I come back.”

My hazy mind sifted through the words and I could only manage to respond with a grumble.

The response was answered by a not-so-gentle shake and Caleb’s lips pressed to my ear. “I need you to wake up, now, Zoe. Get into the bathroom and do what I told you. Right now!”

He was whispering but the urgency in his voice was coming through loud and clear. I opened my eyes to see the room around us was still dark, but I was no longer blissfully wrapped in Caleb’s arms. Instead he was kneeling on the bed, his hands cupping my face as he leaned in to talk quietly to me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, knowing instinctively that this was not the norm for new lovers. Waking me with soft heated kisses and asking me to join him in the shower, maybe, but not this.

“I need you to do what I said. Hurry!”

This time instead of waiting for my reply, Caleb pulled away. He lifted my shoulders off the bed until I was sitting up and then thrust clothes in my arms.

“In the bathroom and stay there until I come get you.”

He was off the bed in the next second, moving to where I had no clue because through my sleep-hazed mind and the dark of the room all I could make out was his shadow. He was moving fast and the tense energy of the room buzzed around me. I slipped off the bed, holding my clothes close to my chest and headed in the direction I remembered the bathroom was.

I was at the door when his hands were at my waist, his body pressed into the back of mine, his lips once again at my ear.

“Remember what I told you, Zoe,” he whispered.

“What? Oh, stay in the bathroom until you come get me.”

I could feel his head moving from side to side behind me.

“No,” he said with a quick sigh. “I will always protect you.”

And then he was gone and I slipped into the bathroom, turning the lock as soon as the door was closed behind me. I hurriedly switched on the light and got dressed. Then I was back at the door again, pressing my ear right up against it, waiting to hear something, but not sure what. I should have brought my phone in here with me, should have brought something for a weapon, something I could use if the person that came back to this door wasn’t Caleb.

Heart beating wildly, I waited but heard nothing. Had he thought there was an intruder in his apartment? Was he going out to confront the person? Should I be calling the police instead of standing here wondering what the hell was going on?

The answer to the latter was a resounding yes and I unlocked the door and turned the knob.

Lights were still off and since this was my first night being in this apartment, I wasn’t 100 percent sure of where I was going or what might be in my way to make my presence known. So one hand was braced against the wall, sliding down as I limped slowly for a good ten feet before the wall ended. That would mean I was in the living/dining room area because as I recalled, the apartment only went in one direction. The bathroom and Caleb’s bedroom had been along this wall.

He was in this room. I couldn’t see him but I knew it, I felt it somewhere deep inside of me. It was as if our bodies were somehow connected now that we’d had sex. I reached for him without moving and waited to see if the feeling was reciprocated. What I felt instead was an icy shiver snaking down my spine until my teeth actually chattered.

There was a sound to the left at that moment and I jerked my head in its direction, eyes open wide as if I thought that would make me see better. It didn’t. Another sound, and what happened next would forever be emblazoned in my memory.

Green and gold lights flashed through the darkness. Four circles of light moved so fast if I’d blinked I would surely have missed it. There was another sound like something smacking against a wall and then a horrific roar that felt like it was shaking the entire building.

I jumped back, a trembling hand to my throat as if that were going to help or somehow change whatever was happening around me. There was more thumping and other sounds that just weren’t humanly.

Don’t fuck with me, bitch! This is all your fault!

You heard what the human said.

Dex’s words rang in my ears and I shook my head, hoping to dislodge them somehow. This time the roar was so loud I immediately thought of being in a forest with killer animals and that was enough to get my butt in gear. I racked my brain for a memory of where the lights were in this place and moved fast, but still kind of unsure, trying to find the switch.

The knee of my good leg slammed into a table and I tumbled over it, landing on the floor with—well, what do you know—the lamp beneath me. Pushing the pain to the back of my mind, knowing I’d have to deal with it later, I felt all over the base of the lamp looking for a switch, finally finding one just beneath the bulb. When light flooded the room I rolled onto my back, crab-walking toward what, I had no idea. Wherever I was headed was far, far, away from the two big-ass cats that were across the room, coming up on their hind legs and trading blows with their front paws. It would have seemed like a regular street fight if they didn’t immediately fall back to the floor, the skin of their jaws inching back to reveal teeth sharper than any knife I’d ever seen.

Fear choked me so screaming wasn’t an option. Running wasn’t really a choice either since I’d backed myself into a corner and the only door that would take me out of here was behind the freakin’ cats! Get to the phone! That was another thought I had. In fact, I kind of chastised myself for not doing that in the first place. My cell phone was in Caleb’s bedroom. Caleb, who I did not see.

The fight continued and my eyes were drawn to the two big beasts, one almost completely black and the other golden and spotted. Their teeth were huge, as they bit and lunged for each other. Shaking fingers moved over my face to push back hair that kept falling and blurring my vision. My chest heaved, breath coming out in quick pants. I couldn’t stay here. That was clear. I had no idea what was going on or why it was going on in a city apartment but that wasn’t the priority right now. Staying alive was.

One of the cats broke the only other table Caleb had in this room, glass from a sculpture I’d seen earlier scattered across the floor. My gaze fell to the floor with those broken pieces, then I shook myself free of that trance and noticed that the front door was no longer blocked. The cats were closer to the opposite wall now, actually a little closer to the corner where I’d barricaded myself.

I didn’t think, didn’t hesitate, just moved. Crawling across the floor because it seemed like the safest and less obvious route, I was going as fast as my feet could take me toward the door until I could reach up and finally grab the knob. The door opened, I slipped through, and was immediately in the bright hallway. Turning, I closed the door behind me for fear the cats would follow. They could easily break through a measly wooden door but it didn’t matter, I couldn’t think about that now.

Holding onto the wall I got to my feet and took a step, only to be reminded about the ankle pain.

“Dammit!” I screamed, because I so did not have time for this crap.

I hobbled, or did some combination of limping and running until I was in the bigger part of the hallway, smacking my hand urgently against the elevator buttons, begging, pleading for it to hurry up and come so I could get the hell out of here. When it did I darted inside, falling against the railed wall and quickly pressing the down button. Once the door closed I breathed a little easier, only to let out a choked cry.

Where was Caleb?

And what the hell was that in his apartment?

I didn’t know, and right now I could barely see past the tears clouding my eyes. When the elevator doors opened I took a deep breath and eased out. Crying wasn’t the answer. It wasn’t going to change anything. I had to think.

In seconds I was outside of Caleb’s apartment building, standing in the cool night breeze, one foot flat on the ground the other with only my toes touching the cement. I was leaning to the side, looking up and down the quiet street wondering what my next step would be. There were no cabs in sight and I didn’t have my phone to call … who would I call? Hanna, I thought quickly, I could call Hanna and she would come and get me.

If I had a freakin’ phone to call her with, my mind screamed. My hands were in my hair again as I tried to calm down, tried to think above the thumping of my heart. I was looking but all I could see were parked cars, none driving by, no taxis, and no damned phone booth.

At the end of the street to the left there was a lamppost, its bright light burning my eyes. At the other end were more parked cars, including one raggedy old navy-blue one that looked a lot like … mine! With frantic hope I hobbled down to that car and almost wept with joy to see it was mine. Caleb must have doubled back to the bar to pick it up when he came out to get my stuff. Oh bless him, bless his kind and compassionate heart, wherever he was.

A tear fell onto my cheek and I hurriedly brushed it away as I moved toward the car again. Then I stopped. “Fuck!” I yelled as loud as I could. My purse was still upstairs in Caleb’s apartment. I dropped my head, my chin pressing into my chest as choked sobs wracked through me. I wanted to be optimistic, wanted to act and not react. I wanted to get the hell out of here before those cats came for me, or what if there were more? I just wanted to go, I needed to leave and I couldn’t! I was trapped, goddammit I was trapped here!

My hands shook as memories of hiding in the closet in the dark and feeling confined assaulted me. Mom’s husband had come into my bedroom, it had been his first time in there, the first time he’d planned to … He’d stood over my bed looking down at me, waiting until I opened my eyes. At first I wasn’t going to because I’d heard him come in, I’d seen through the slits of my eyes as his big shadowed body had approached. I’d closed my eyes tight then and figured if I faked sleep he’d leave me alone. But then he stood there and stood there and I knew he wasn’t just going to go away, not until he finished what he’d come for, or I made him go. Those were the only two options. So I opened my eyes and he’d smiled. I wanted to puke.

He reached for me then, running his finger along the rim of my nightgown. I sucked in a breath just as his tongue had snaked out to run along his bottom lip. Act or react, I’d thought, now or never and never was going to be too damned late. So I acted. I balled my fist as tight as I could and I reached out, punching him right in the dick. He yowled and doubled over in pain and I ran, out of my room and down the stairs, down into the living room closet by the front door. I pushed past the old newspapers Mama liked to keep and huddled in the farthest corner hoping he wouldn’t come looking for me, praying he wouldn’t find me.

For hours I’d been trapped and fear had scraped along my skin like nails. I’d cried and cried and nothing had happened, the act alone hadn’t sent someone to rescue me, so I vowed not to cry again. Eventually I got up and came out of the closet. The pervert had left for work by then and I went about the day as if nothing had happened. But something had and it had changed my life.

With a sharp inhale and resolution spreading through me like wildfire, I reached both hands up and pushed my hair back, looking around once more as I did. On a slow exhale of breath my arms fell to my sides, my right arm banging against something … something … I looked down at my legs, saw blood seeping through my jeans and then I saw a bulge, right at the top of my hip. With tentative movements I slid my hand into my pocket and almost screamed with relief.

When I’d left the bar earlier tonight with Dex I had my car keys in hand because I’d been intending to get in my car after our discussion and go home. When Dex had pulled me around the back of the bar instead, I’d stuffed my keys in my pocket so my hands would be free in case I’d had to fight back, which I did.

I was thanking every entity and higher being known as I pulled out the keys and moved around the car. Once inside another tear fell and I nudged it away with the back of my left hand while my right shoved the key into the ignition.

“Please start, you piece of crap. Please just start, goddammit, start!” I yelled as the engine sputtered and spit and then finally decided it would come to life one more time. I sighed and pulled off, not once looking back, not having the guts to.

Dex was dead.

I’d wanted to kill him, felt absolute power and retribution when the teeth of my cat had finally clamped down on his brain, crushing everything that he was and everything that he was meant to do.

I didn’t regret one second of what I’d done or the life I’d ended. That made me a murderer.

And Zoe had seen that. She’d seen the part of me I’d never wanted anyone to know about. Hell, it was the demon inside I’d vowed never to let out because I’d known what the repercussions would be.

All those years I’d been with the Sanchezes and we’d traveled the world talking to other Shadow Shifter tribes, learning their ways and making strides to keep a worldwide peace, I’d done so out of necessity. I never believed in any of the bullshit, never wanted to live in their world, or the human one for that matter. How many times had I wondered why the humans hadn’t killed me that day I’d gone into their village looking for the one that had killed my mother? I’d wanted to die then, wanted desperately to stop breathing, stop living, stop seeing the trees and the flowers she’d loved so much. The scent of the rainforest clogged my lungs and the sound of her voice in my head threatened to drive me insane.

I’d wanted to die.

But I hadn’t.

Tonight, I’d wanted to kill.

And I did.

Now I sat on my couch, jeans pulled over my legs but not buttoned, feet and everything else bare. My elbows rested on my knees, hands hanging down just like my head as the events of the night replayed in my mind.

I smelled him. In my sleep the putrid scent of rogues had permeated my nostrils and I’d awakened. He’d come for me and for Zoe because somehow he’d known she was here. I wouldn’t let him have her, but me, hell yeah, he could go against me all he wanted.

The second I stepped into the living room I’d known he was in cat form, I’d seen his green eyes. I hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t thought for one moment that Zoe wouldn’t listen to what I told her, so I shifted. And we fought, until the death. And when I went back to the bathroom, when the human form had once again pushed the cat away, Zoe was gone, and I felt like the air had been sucked right out of me. I’d only been able to do two other things since that moment—put on my jeans and call Aidan.

I’d called the only people I knew in this world, the only ones that knew all the dark recesses of my life. I don’t know why I called them because I could have just left. I could have packed up my shit and hit the road, the way I’d been doing since I left the Sanchezes when I’d turned eighteen. They hadn’t fought me, had respected my decision and told me they loved me, just like real parents would do, I guess. Only they weren’t my real parents and they never would be.

Footsteps sounded but I didn’t move, didn’t see the need to. I knew who was here.

“Caleb?” Brayden called to me the second he stepped through the front door.

I counted his steps, knew by now he was standing over the dead carcass of Dex’s cat. A hand touched my shoulder and I knew it was Aidan.

“We’ll take care of the body. You get your stuff so we’ll be ready to leave,” the oldest of the Sanchez boys said.

I didn’t move, didn’t even look up at him before the words fell from my lips, “She’s gone.”

“Who’s gone?” Brayden asked.

He stood in front of me now, I could tell by how close his voice sounded. Slowly, as if it weighed far too much to do so with any type of speed, I lifted my head. I looked at the two guys, the two shifters, that I’d run through the jungle with, first drank liquor with, talked about losing my virginity with and I repeated, “She’s gone.”

“There was someone else here,” Aidan said. “And she’s gone.”

I nodded.

“Goddammit!” Brayden swore. “Did she see anything?”

“Yes,” I replied because there was no way she couldn’t have, and there was no other reason she would have left. “I scared her away.”

“You protected her,” Aidan said as if now he knew exactly what had happened, which was impossible because all I’d said on the phone was that I needed help.

“We have to find her,” Brayden announced. “After we get rid of this body. I’m calling for backup.”

Because Brayden always did what was right. He’d pulled out his cell phone and walked away from me and Aidan. It hadn’t mattered, I knew he was calling the Faction Leader to report what had happened. In minutes my apartment would be filled with shifter guards who would pack the cat carcass into a specially made body bag. From here it would go back to Havenway, the headquarters that the East Coast Faction Leader had constructed. They had crematories on premises for situations just like this, where shifter bodies were disposed of. They could not be buried for fear of someone, for whatever reason, exhuming the body and finding out it was not completely human.

“Who is she?”

Aidan’s question rang in my ears like an accusation and I was immediately on guard.

“Can’t I have someone in my life? Can’t I do something that isn’t entwined with all this bullshit?”

I’d stood to confront him but Aidan didn’t flinch. He was a couple inches taller than my six-foot-one stature. On his feet were black boots and he wore loose-fitting jeans with a black T-shirt beneath a dark denim jacket. His face was clean shaven, his hair shorter than mine. He did his fair share of working out and most likely training as evidenced by his broad shoulders and muscled upper body. In fact, he looked like he could probably kick my ass into next week—if I were drunk and blind in one eye.

“Whoa, take it down a notch, bro. I’m not saying any of that,” Brayden insisted. “I was asking who she was to find out her connection to you. I think you’ve already given me that answer.”

Running my hands down my face I exhaled deeply, trying to get it together. Emotion was never good, I knew that and that’s why I’d always been so careful to keep a tight lid on whatever I was really feeling. Tonight, I’d let that barrier down, I’d opened the door just a crack and look what the hell had happened in response.

“She’s important,” I admitted finally. That didn’t sound like enough of an explanation and it didn’t seem to accurately describe what Zoe was or what she’d come to be in my life, but it was the best I could do.

Aidan nodded. “And she’s human.”

I gave him a nod in return as I met his gaze. “Yes. She’s human.”

“Then we’ve got to find her and make sure she doesn’t tell anyone what she saw,” Brayden said, coming back over to join us. “X is on his way with a crew. He’s not going to be happy to learn of exposure issues. It’d be better if we could tell him and the FL that we’ve taken care of it.”

Aidan never even looked at Brayden, he kept staring at me. “I don’t think it’s going to be that simple,” he said.

“It has to be,” Brayden insisted. “After your issues in Virginia and mine and Lidia’s in Pacifica, we’re batting two for three. We cannot afford to have the FL on our asses about another exposure issue. He’s going to kick all of us out of the training.”

“I don’t give a shit about any training or the FL’s opinion of me!” I yelled. “That’s your shit to deal with, not mine.”

Brayden stepped closer to me. “We’re family, bro. We’re a team. We always have been. The Assembly has been waiting for us to get through the training so we could use everything we’ve learned and seen over the years to join forces with them. Letting them down is not an option!”

I moved in closer so that Brayden and I were now nose to nose. “Those are your fuckin’ options! I walk my own path, I do my own thing. Always have and always will.”

“To hell with the people who care about you,” Brayden continued. “To hell with Mom and Dad.”

I shook my head. “This doesn’t involve them! My choices are not their burdens.”

“But your disappointing acts might just be the death of them, at least for Mom.”

Brayden’s voice had grown a little quieter then and I was immediately concerned. I looked to Aidan who was now frowning at Brayden.

“What’s he talking about?” I asked, not liking the scent I was picking up from these two.

“Mom’s sick,” Aidan told me frankly. “Nick’s mate has gone down to Florida to take a look at her, but we’re not sure what it is.”

So many thoughts rolled through my mind in the last ten seconds, my stomach twisted and I actually thought I might hurl.

“What do you mean we’re not sure what it is? Has she been to a hospital?”

“Ary is with her now,” Brayden said.

“Who the hell is Ary and why is she not at a hospital?” I yelled.

Aidan grabbed my arm this time, clenched his fingers with enough force that my mind focused on that instead of the rage that was about to break through.

“Ary is Lead Enforcer Nick Delgado’s mate. She’s also a curandero and will find out what is going on with Mom,” he said slowly, solemnly.

“She’s a tribe healer, not a doctor,” I told him, shaking my head.

“Would you rather she go to a human hospital and find out that her problem is shifter related?” Brayden asked. “You always act first and think about the consequences, the questions, and repercussions later. It’s time to grow up, Caleb. To be who it is you were meant to be and to stop blaming everybody for the crappy way you choose to live your life.”

I glared at him, ready to take a shot at his annoying ass, but Aidan held strong to my arm.

“We’ll find your female, get this mess sorted out, and then you can go see Mom. She’ll like having you there since you were always her favorite,” Aidan added with a smirk.

They’d always teased that I was Marta’s favorite because she let me have seconds and thirds way more frequently than she did them and when there was an argument between the three of us, Marta always came to bat for me. Hell! She couldn’t be sick, she couldn’t be gone … ever.

My teeth and my fingers clenched and I shook my head to clear some of the dark fog that had been clouding my mind, egging the rage on like fuel to an already burgeoning fire.

“What’s her name? Where does she live?” Brayden asked.

“No,” I told them. “She wouldn’t go back to her place.”

I was just about to try and think of another place she might go when we all heard a chiming sound.

Aidan looked down at his waist where his cell phone was stored. “It’s not mine,” he said, looking over at Brayden.

“That girly sounding alert is definitely not mine. Must be his,” Brayden said, nodding in my direction.

I smirked and replied, “Wrong.”

Moving through the living room to my bedroom I found Zoe’s purse laying on one of the chairs across from the bed. Beneath the purse was her cell phone and the screen was alight with a newly received text message.

Caleb, if you are alive, please call me on Hanna’s phone. Please.

The first thing I did was sigh with relief. Zoe was okay and she didn’t hate me. She actually wanted to talk to me. Waves of tension rolled off my shoulders as I gripped the phone tightly in my hand.

Finally, because I heard new voices coming from the living room, I yelled out.

“I found her!”

“Are you out of every bit of your mind?” Hanna screeched, snatching her cell phone from my hand. “Did you just call the bastard stalker that seduced you into his bed and then left you while somebody tried to break in to his apartment?”

To say Hanna was a bit upset at the events of the night was an understatement. Not that I wasn’t still shaking, even after the shower and the Band-Aids on my knees and scrapes on my hands. Because I was, but I hadn’t exactly told her everything. Which, from the way she was ranting and raving might have turned out to be a good thing.

I was sitting on her couch, fluffy shag pillows propped up behind me with a cup of smoking hot tea on the coffee table in front of me. Hanna actually thought a shot of scotch was the cure to everything, but since I wasn’t a drinker, she’d restrained herself enough to make me tea instead. Now, she was pacing back and forth across her zebra-print rug, which made her look all kinds of crazy since the leggings and tank top she slept in were of a leopard print. I was feeling a little too close to the jungle right now, especially considering what I’d just seen in Caleb’s apartment.

“I just want to know that he’s alright,” I replied finally.

“Oh he’s alright, he got the hell out of there before anything bad happened, which I cannot say for you.” The last was said as she pointed the phone to my now-exposed knees since she’d given me a pair of shorts and a T-shirt of her own to wear. Her eyes also went to the bandage I reapplied to my ankle on my own this time. I hadn’t told her how that really happened either.

It’s funny how Hanna was the first person I’d thought of to run to in this situation, but she was the last person I trusted with the truth. She had this thing about overreacting, which I’d seen early on in our relationship. That might also explain why I never told her about my past either. But I had told Caleb. On the first night I’d actually spent any serious time with him, I’d confessed about my family and I’d had sex with him. What did that mean?

“Could you sit down, please? You’re making me dizzy,” I said instead of going back and forth with her about the situation.

“Oh, I’ll sit down alright,” she huffed, coming around the coffee table and dropping herself onto the couch right beside me. “I’ll sit right here and wait for you to tell me why you went to his place anyway. Every time he’s been in the bar he’s sat in the back looking all creepy, just staring at people and eating his food.”

“That’s not a crime,” I pointed out as I reached for the cup of tea.

“No, it’s not, but hanging around in dark parking lots at three in the morning sure is. Showing up when somebody’s trying to buy their groceries and trying to get a free feel is.”

“Actually, it’s not unless I perceive those actions as dangerous.”

That probably wasn’t the right thing to say because Hanna’s eyes almost bulged right out of her face. Her lips, which were usually painted and highly glossed with some of her fabulous MAC gloss, were bare and pressed together into a tight line. That confirmed she wasn’t happy with what I’d just said.

“Look, Hanna, I see your point and I get that from the other side of the fence this all looks pretty bad. But there was something, I don’t know, like a force in the air that just kept pulling us together. No matter how many times I pushed him away, he just kept coming back.”

“That,” she said, poking a finger into my arm, “is not the force, honey. That’s crazy stalker crap and I knew I should have called the police the first time.”

She turned in the chair then so that her whole body was facing me and took the cup of tea out of my hands. Her fingers laced with mine and she looked at me with what I presumed was her very serious face.

“You can tell me, Zoe, I won’t judge. Did he rape you? Is that what all this ‘someone broke in and he left’ drama is all about? Did that asshole make you do things you didn’t want to?”

I’d begun shaking my head at the moment she said she wouldn’t judge because that’s all Hanna Etheridge ever did. The words that followed were just as bad and just as out of line. I slipped my hands from hers, wondering if this wasn’t the wrong place to come after all.

“Because, see, I knew something was off about his ass,” Hanna continued. “That’s why when Dex came into the bar looking for you after I could have sworn the two of you left together, I got worried. Then when I went out into the parking lot and your car was still there, I was like ‘oh no.’”

Her eyes widened and she’d even made an O with her mouth. How’s that for dramatic?

“I told Dex that bastard probably had you. I told him how he’d been on your back for a couple of weeks now.”

“You did what?” I asked, no longer entertained by her skillful or tacky—couldn’t figure out which—acting skills.

“I told Dex you were with that Caleb person.”

“No,” I whispered, too many scenarios going through my head and none of them quite making any sense. “You did not tell him that.”

She nodded. “Oh, yes I did. I told him about that time I saw him all up on you at the grocery store too. And he was plenty pissed. Said he knew where that half-breed lived and he was going to make him and his kind pay. I didn’t know he was biracial or anything. I just thought he was Latino. But Dex and his boys tore out of that place so fast I figured he’d have you home before sunrise.”

I scooted away from her as she spoke. “Caleb was born in Brazil,” I said slowly. “He’s not a … how did Dex know where he lived?”

“Girl, stop with all this, we need to call the police and—”

Her words were interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone. Both of us paused then, staring down at her hand as the phone rang and vibrated again.

“I don’t know this number,” Hanna said.

I leaned in a little. “I do.”

I snatched it out of her hand before she could do whatever her silly mind was thinking and I answered it.

“Hello? Caleb?”

“Zoe.”

I sighed at the sound of my name in his voice. If I were alone I might have closed my eyes and given thanks, but under Hanna’s scrutiny, I thought I better not. Clearing my throat I asked, “Are you alright?”

“I am. Are you?”

“Yes, um, I think so. I don’t really know what happened.”

“Tell me where you are. I’m coming to you.”

His words sounded so urgent, so do-or-die, sort of how I felt when I’d texted him. In the next instant I rattled off Hanna’s address and Caleb hung up, repeating again, “I’m coming to you.”

Hanna was not happy. She’d snatched her phone back, mumbling about me and my poor choice of men and about being ready for his ass when he got here because if he tried something—she’d gone into the bedroom with the rest of her rant and I was glad. Her constant chatter was getting on my nerves, or was it what she was actually saying that was getting on my nerves? No, that was making me think. Something about what Hanna had said and what I’d heard Dex and Caleb say before had my thoughts churning.

I was certain I hadn’t seen what I thought I’d seen tonight. There were not two animals fighting in Caleb’s apartment. Instead it was Dex and Caleb fighting. The darkness must have distorted their bodies, seeing as both of them were extremely muscular and had this dark exotic look about them. Now I wished I’d stayed, I wished I’d tried to break the fight up instead of freaking out and running away. I wished I could rewind time a bit, just to be sure, just to know …

There were three of them, each one fine as hell and built like fighters. Each one standing on Hanna’s zebra-print rug looking more menacing, more alluring than any jungle animal I’d ever seen.

“I’m Aidan and these are my brothers, Brayden and Caleb, whom you’ve already met,” the first one said.

And I had to be dreaming, I thought as I continued to stare from one to the other.

“I’m Hanna and he’s a stalking rapist. Shall I call the police now?”

All eyes flew to the doorway where Hanna stood. She’d changed into black silky leggings that shimmered a bit when she moved and a red top that left a couple inches of her midriff and her arms bare. She’d lifted her braids into a high ponytail and wore big hoop gold earrings. Normally, it wasn’t an outfit I would criticize, except that it was barely five o’clock in the morning and she looked as if she were ready for a night of partying.

“No police,” the guy in the middle, Brayden, I think, said. He had the more serious look, his brow knotted like he was ready to kick some ass at a moment’s notice.

“I’m just here for Zoe,” Caleb said in a softer tone as he moved toward the chair where I’d sat after opening the door for them. “Are you alright?” he asked again, this time reaching a hand out to touch my chin.

The moment the connection was made heat soared through my body and Caleb pulled back as if I’d burned him with it.

“I’m okay,” I replied stiffly. “What happened?”

“We should leave,” Brayden insisted. He seemed impatient and a little edgy.

“All of us,” he continued and Caleb shot him a searing look.

“Was Dex there?” I continued as if I didn’t hear anyone but Caleb. The way the other two were standing there I felt like they were bodyguards of some type, that or possibly undercover cops. They were staring so seriously, looking ready to pounce should there be a need. My heart thumped in my chest, but I refused to show any of that to them. I wanted the truth from Caleb. I needed to know if he’d in fact left me behind while someone broke in, or stayed and fought or whatever the hell had happened in his house. I had a very bad feeling about what was going on.

“What did you see?” Aidan asked me.

At least that’s the one I thought was speaking. His voice seemed deeper, his accent softer than the other guy. Neither of them was as pronounced as Caleb’s, which I remembered explicitly from when we were in bed together.

“Caleb?” I said his name and it was all I could do to keep my gaze on him.

He’d looked down at his hands, then lifted one to set on top of where mine lay on my thigh. Time seemed to stand still in those moments and I didn’t know whether to scream with impatience or cry with the emotion welling in my chest.

When his head lifted slowly, I had no idea what he was going to tell me or how his reply would make me feel. I just didn’t know how all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours fit into my life, into the life I’d thought I’d made for myself.

“You would never understand,” he began.

His voice was so low I barely heard him and then there was a loud noise behind me followed immediately by Hanna clapping and saying, “There they are, boys, handle your business!”

Everything from that moment on was a blur as the two guys I’d always seen with Dex kicked in Hanna’s door and immediately lunged for the two guys that had been standing on the other side of the coffee table. Caleb had hesitated a moment only to turn to me and say, “I’m sorry.”

The next thing I knew furniture was breaking, fists were flying, and memories came crashing into my mind like a movie on rewind. My chest tightened with the familiar anxiety, my fingers clenching and unclenching with the need to do something but not knowing what. Eventually my arm was grabbed by Hanna and I yanked away from her.

“What did you do?” I asked her as we stood near the now-broken door. “What the hell did you do to him?”

She shook her head, those big earrings slapping against her rouged cheeks. “So naïve, Zoe. You’ve always been so naïve. That guy was lying to you from the start. He’s all mixed up in this gang crap and Dex and his buddies are undercovers. They’re the good guys.”

No sooner had she said that than one of Dex’s friends reached out, grabbing her by the neck and pulling her away from me. I screamed her name and was about to run toward her when I was lifted from the floor. I saw Hanna’s large expressive eyes highlighted by that silver-and-black shadow she loved so much, grow bigger, her mouth opening but no sound coming out.

And then I didn’t see anything else.

One month later

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Gil Sanchez said from behind me.

I’d been standing on the back porch of the Sanchez family home in Key West, Florida, staring out to the Atlantic, watching as the sun lowered to kiss the cap of waves.

“She wasn’t from our world,” he continued.

I listened because that’s what a respectful son did—even if the blood running through my veins was different from his. Still, none of his words mattered, none of what he said would change the way things were, the way I knew all along they would turn out to be.

I’d left D.C. the evening after the fight with Dex’s rogue friends. There were no dead bodies this time as we hadn’t shifted and the two rogues, well, they knew when they’d been beaten enough. Especially after the one had choked Hanna until she was unconscious. We’d lost them even though X and a few other shifter guards had arrived. Dex’s body had already been in the back of X’s truck, ready to be destroyed.

And Zoe, I’d carried her down to my truck myself, her body so still in my arms it appeared lifeless. Aidan drove and I continued to hold her, all the way to the hospital.

“She hates hospitals,” I remember saying to no one in particular before we pulled into the parking lot with the huge EMERGENCY sign in bright red letters.

X had appeared at the passenger-side door just as I’d been about to get out. “I’ll take her in.”

“No,” I’d replied instantly. “I’ll do it.”

“No,” he came back, his voice deep, stern, authoritative. “You and your brothers will head back to Havenway, now. I’ll handle things here.”

“Bullshit!” I’d yelled back. “She’s my … my … fuck that, I’ll handle it!”

X’s hand came down on my shoulder just as I’d stepped out of the truck. “This is not a choice, kid. It’s an order, from the FL. I’m going to take care of this whole situation here and you’re going to get your ass back to the base.” Then the frown marring the big guy’s forehead had lessened only slightly, the muscle twitching in his jaw slowing a bit. “Look, I know what you’re feeling. I get it. But this is how it has to be, I think you know that.”

My teeth had clenched so hard I thought I’d break my jaw. My fingers tightened on Zoe and I dropped my head, looking down at her face, at the way her eyelashes fanned against her clear skin. She was a human, an innocent human that had seen more trauma and heartbreak than anyone should and I’d only brought her more. She was unconscious in my arms now because of the life I’d walked her into, because of my interference. I inhaled deeply, let her scent permeate every crevice of my body. Then I loosened my hold and let X take her out of my arms.

I climbed back into my truck immediately, telling Aidan to drive without even watching to see X take her into the building. I hadn’t looked back, hadn’t contacted her, had tried like hell not to even think about her since that night. But it was all a waste of time, my thoughts could grasp and hold onto nothing but her.

“Sometimes we have to go through trials and tribulations to get to the point of happiness we deserve. It’s the only way we truly learn to appreciate what we have.” Gil continued to talk.

I continued to half-listen, my gaze still focused on the beach, my eyes blinking with the slow measured rhythm of my breathing. Since arriving in Florida three weeks ago, all the time that hadn’t been spent at Marta’s bedside I spent right here in this spot, as if I expected something to happen here, something that would change my thoughts, my emotions, my …

It was a mirage, no, a figment of my imagination, come to life. No, I didn’t believe in any of that crap. But I did blink again, wondering if maybe I did need a little bit of rest or maybe something to eat.

“Life’s all about appreciating what has been given, not harping on what’s been taken away. You should always be focused on forward movement, on being made a better person by past experiences.” Gil was still talking.

At this point I was no longer listening. Instead, I was walking toward the end of the deck, toward the part of the beach where I saw as plain as the sand and the water, Zoe walking toward the house. Her hair was loose, long curly strands blowing in the breeze as she moved. She wore a short dress with straps that circled her neck, the top hugging her breasts tightly as the bottom flowed freely around her thighs. She held shoes in one hand, and the other was raised, pushing back hair that had blown into her face. Her head lifted then, her gaze linking with mine and she stopped moving.

I think I stopped breathing.

Then I was moving, my hands going to the railing of the deck to hold my weight while I vaulted over. I landed on my feet, of course, standing still for a fraction of a second before running toward her.

She opened her mouth to speak the moment I was close to her, but I silenced the words with my lips, cupping her face in my hands and thrusting my tongue into her mouth.

In that instant Gil’s words floated in the back of mind, like a narrator or some cosmic shit like that. My life, the good and the bad parts of it replayed behind my closed eyes, emotions swirling from the pit of my stomach rising upward to my chest. I sank deeper into the kiss, into the feel of Zoe’s palms as they flattened on my chest. Turning my head I took the kiss deeper, felt myself free-falling faster and faster as she matched my hunger with ease, our erratic breathing synced like our movements.

Around us the breeze kicked up, sprays of water prickling our skin as we stood so close to the crashing waves. I pulled away slightly, long enough for her to take one quick inhale and exhale, then my hands were beneath that sexy skirt, grasping her ass and hoisting her up. She had another second to gasp before she was wrapping her legs around my waist, her arms around my neck, and my lips were on hers once more.

A more fanciful guy would say this kiss was dreamy and delicious. Me, I went straight for the candid and the obvious, it was hot as hell and it reached so deep into my chest my next breath was clogged, my heart clenching then warming, my arms tightening around her, my mind knowing I would never walk away from her again, I would never leave her again. I would never leave my mate.

Fear had been the first thought as I’d opened my eyes that morning in the hospital, hearing the machines beeping around me, the soft muddle of nursing shoes against shining tiled floors as they moved around the bed. My fingers had clenched in the stark white sheets, my eyes closing and staying that way as I struggled to remember how I came to be here.

Then I remembered.

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.

“Everyone has their own path, Caleb. Human or otherwise. I had to accept that about my mother, that’s how I could leave her and my sister and brother there in that house on my eighteenth birthday. I walked away because that was my path to take. My mother stays because that is hers. You kept coming back to that bar, sitting there ordering wings and nachos and Blue Moons because you felt the same thing I did. You felt that we were meant to be, that we were mates or what you call them, companheiros.”

“You talk too much,” was his curt reply as he turned away from me again.

“True,” I agreed, moving closer to where he stood but not touching him. “And you don’t listen well enough.”

“I’ve heard that before,” he grumbled.

“I won’t leave you, if that’s what you’re thinking. I won’t turn my back on you to go back to my people or my world.” I stepped to him then, putting both my palms in the center of his broad back, moving them over his shoulder blades, down his sides until I had wrapped my arms around his waist. I lay my cheek against him, listening to the steadiness of his heartbeat, hearing that it now matched the rhythm of my own. I inhaled deeply and loved the scent that moved through me, swirling around and cocooning my heart. “And I won’t tell the secret because I love you and who and what you are too much to ever put you in that type of danger.”

I held on for what seemed like endless moments, loving the feel of him in my arms but really needing him to respond so I wouldn’t feel like a total ass.

If it was sweet words I really craved, they would not come. If I thought the next actions would be right out of a swooping romance novel, I would have been beyond wrong. Instead, Caleb turned to me, his cat’s eyes still glaring. His strong hands grabbed my ass once more, lifting me right off the floor and carrying us both back to that futon. He was over me seconds after he laid me on the chair, his hands ripping away my panties with one quick yank.

I opened my mouth to speak but was silenced by his lips on mine, his kiss hungrier than I’d ever experienced and sweeter than I—or any romance novel writer—could have ever imagined. So, okay, I wouldn’t talk, I’d simply take this rush of desire, this burst of heat so potent it took my breath away. His hands moved quickly, as his tongue delved deeper, dueling with mine. My hands were in his hair, nails raking over his scalp as I tried to keep up, tried to take all that I possibly could of him.

In mere seconds he’d unbuckled his pants, freeing his arousal. His teeth scraped along the line of my jaw as both hands resumed gripping my bottom, lifting me slightly off the chair to meet the quick and deep thrust as he entered me. I gasped, arched my back, then sighed as he spoke.

“I know that you’re my companheiro,” he said, his voice gruff in my ear. “I’ve known that you were mine since first seeing you.”

His words were a thin layer over the deep thrusts he made and I matched. They hovered in the air around us, cocooning us, sealing the fate we now both accepted. I loved this moment, this feeling, this complete absorption that until this exact moment I’d only had the pleasure of reading about.

“I know about the human world and the shifter world and I don’t give a damn about any of them,” he continued.

My fingers were digging into his back, my eyes half-closed, mouth opened as I gasped and whispered his name. So when he suddenly stopped all movement I wanted to stop breathing, forever.

“I don’t give a damn about anything but you.” Caleb was looking at me then, not with his cat’s eyes but with his dark brown ones, filled with lust and desire and something that pricked a tiny hole in my heart. “I only care about you and being everything I can be to make you happy, to make you understand that I love you.”

Tears immediately filled my eyes as that tiny hole in my heart was filled with his words, the sincerity of them, the totality of them. Caleb lowered his head and kissed the first tear to fall and I gasped his name.

“I love you,” I whispered, and he began to move over me once more. It wasn’t fast and fevered, hungry and needy as it was a few moments ago, but slow, tender, meaningful, and I loved every minute of it. I loved every part of him.

It had been three weeks since we left Florida. Marta was doing much better after the remedies Ary Delgado had supplied for her—remedies that were not of the human world. Ones that I would be forever grateful for because I never wanted to lose Marta, I never wanted to lose the best mother I could have ever asked for.

Marta and Zoe hit it off immediately as Zoe had quickly taken to helping Ary with whatever she needed to keep Marta comfortable. I spent more hours watching the two females that meant the most in this world to me together than I could count. Watching the human and the shifter bond regardless of their obvious and not-so-obvious differences.

I grew up a lot in those days of watching and listening and allowing myself to believe. Running was cowardice, avoiding was disastrous, and not living was downright criminal. Gil had told me that and I believed him wholeheartedly.

I came back to D.C. with Aidan and Brayden, and missed Zoe desperately as she stayed behind to continue to help Gil with Marta. Training beside my brothers was like old times. The three of us didn’t miss a beat in the physical tasks required of us. We spent hours behind closed doors with Nick Delgado going over security issues and weak points and even more hours with X reviewing the human government infrastructure, until finally, the day had come.

Havenway was still in its early days and most of the old buildings were in various stages of construction, but we’d been summoned to what was being called “the briefing room.” It was a little after noon as I closed the door to the room I’d been assigned to and walked down the long hallway. I knew what this was about, knew what going in there would mean and I was okay with it. I knew who I was and why I was put here and I was ready to take the next step.

Knowing that Zoe was waiting for me in the house where I’d spent a lot of my teen years had a lot to do with my acceptance. She knew everything there was to know about me and she was still there, still waiting for me, still loving me. My heart swelled with the thought because I never thought I’d have someone like her, with feelings that rivaled my own. I just never assumed this was where my life would end up.

“You ready for this?” Aidan said, meeting me as he entered the hallway from another direction.

We were wearing the black cargo pants, T-shirts, and black industrial boots that had become our uniform as of late.

“I’m as ready as you are,” was my reply.

He reached for my arm. “Just checking,” he said with a grin.

Aidan had checked daily for the bracelet. Topètenia males received a leather bracelet with the Topètenia insignia branded along its length, after their first completed shift, usually around the age of sixteen. I hadn’t worn mine since I’d turned eighteen and left the Sanchezes. The morning after Zoe arrived in Florida I’d put it on. She’d touched the leather and asked me about the bracelet and I’d explained it to her, told her about the transition of the Topètenia shifters from child to shifter to soldier. She’d smiled at me and pride had swelled in my chest. Today, I looked over at Aidan’s matching bracelet and felt that same pride.

“I’m here one hundred percent,” I told him. “You don’t have to doubt that anymore.”

Aidan nodded. “So am I.”

“Good to hear.” Brayden came up behind us, clapping us on the shoulder. “Thought I was going to have to take both of you out for going AWOL.”

“Nah, we would never let you stand and take all the glory of becoming a guard alone,” Aidan joked.

“Never that,” I added.

It felt good, this walk down the hall with my brothers. The bond we’d built over the years had intensified, our connection sealed.

It wasn’t until we entered the briefing room that our joking moods subsided. There was a stage toward one end and a podium with a sound system had been set up there. Behind the stage the wall was draped in black, the Topètenia insignia in a vibrant green color. The floor was a dark laminate with cushioned chairs lined in rows of twenty across, ten down each side with a three-foot-wide aisle in between.

Lidia joined us and we walked two by two down the aisle, stopping just in front of the stage. Nick and X came up on either side of the four of us and Roman Reynolds, the East Coast Faction Leader stood behind the podium.

The ceremony was brief, our status as special operative shifter guards sealed and applauded by all those in attendance. But I didn’t feel the significance of the whole thing until later that evening. It was after dinner when Rome came to where we sat in the dining hall.

“It’s time,” was all he’d said.

We all knew to get up and follow him out. None of us spoke as we moved through one long hallway after another until finally stopping at a steel door. The Faction Leader typed a number on the keypad just beneath the knob. There was a loud click and the door slid sideways, instead of opening outward. Rome walked through and we followed. There were no lights on, but none were needed. About a quarter of a mile in I saw the first candle and then a room that opened up to at least two hundred more. They lined the walls, casting the space in an eerie glow.

The Faction Leader was immediately approached by another guard and draped in a black robe that tied at his neck with a silver rope. Out of the shadows appeared two more cloaked in gray robes. They came to stand on the side of the FL. A small table was brought before the FL, a needle and ink on top.

“Aidan Sanchez,” the FL called solemnly and Aidan stepped forward.

I watched as my oldest brother removed his T-shirt and knelt on his knees as the Topètenia insignia was tattooed onto his back. When he was finished, Aidan stood and Rome came over to him. The FL placed both hands on Aidan’s shoulders and whispered some words to him. Aidan nodded and Brayden’s name was called.

I would be next. I would step forward and point to where I wanted the tat, then it would be done and it would be official. I would be a Topètenia shifter for the rest of my life.

Twenty minutes later my right bicep stung as the needle applied the ink, branding me. When I stood my teeth were clenched, eyes trained on the FL standing in front of me.

“You were one. Now you are of many. You are a Topètenia and we are bonded. My strength,” the FL continued, cupping his hand to my bicep. I did as I’d seen Brayden and Aidan do before me, twisting my arm around the outside of the FL’s to grab his wrist.

“My strength,” I repeated.

“Our strength,” we said in unison.

When I returned to my room that night the first thing I did was call Zoe. As I lay on the bed waiting for her to pick up the phone, I touched the tat lightly.

“Hey there,” she answered, her voice light and happy.

I smiled at the sound. “Hey yourself.”

“How’d it go?”

“It went great,” I admitted. “It feels right.”

“It is right. You’re right where you should be,” she insisted.

“And you’re with me.”

“Absolutely.”

“I love you, my companheiro,” I told her with warmth and emotion swarming around the tat, similar to the way it did whenever she touched me there.

“And I love you, my companheiro.”