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.”