“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.
CHAPTER 15
Caleb
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.