Chapter 14 #2
“I’m a shifter who can’t shift, Conri. I’m reminded of that each day that I live here.
” I chuckled but it was just a sad noise.
“I’m lost in the pack. I’m something other, and I don’t really belong.
Who here, besides you, really appreciates me?
What do I bring that the others respect?
I’m never really going to have a life here.
I won’t find a mate within the pack.” My voice faltered under the sudden embarrassment of venturing too close to discussing sex with my older, endlessly protective brother.
“I’m too fragile. We both know that. I think I should be somewhere I’m wanted, don’t you agree?
” I lifted my voice with my question turning it into a small plea.
“And those wolves need protection. I can do that for them.”
He watched me for long, silent moments, and the knowledge of failure started a slow creep through my chest. I hadn’t convinced him.
But then he nodded before I could spiral.
“Okay. If it’s what you want.” He nodded again like he was convincing himself that his words were the right ones to say.
“If you’re careful, you can live out there.
We’ll need to work out some guidelines and communication rules, though.
You’re still part of my pack, and your safety is still my responsibility.
” He glanced downward, brushing the side of his hand across his eyes in a sudden swipe before he looked at me again. “And you’re my family, Key.”
He stood and pulled me into a huge hug. Only Conri’s arms felt this solid and comforting. Big brother arms. He’d guided me and protected me all of the years since our parents were killed, and I relaxed into his familiarity and the sense of family his embrace brought me.
I blinked back tears, but where I expected only sadness, I also found relief. He was letting me go, and I’d finally get to live my own life, my own way, and without the daily torment of people like Sienna.
“Thank you, Conri,” I whispered.
He let me go and stepped back, a rueful smile on his face. “Guess that’s my little sister all grown up?”
“Surely not.” I laughed along with him as I reached for the deed.
Then I stopped.
“Something wrong?” Conri drew his eyebrows together into a quizzical frown.
Automatically, I started to shake my head. I always told Conri there was nothing wrong. But unexpected sadness filled me.
“What’s wrong?” Conri looked more worried now.
I shrugged. I could play this off. “I just kinda liked having a job for the pack, that’s all.” Yeah, that was all… and I wouldn’t have a reason to see Jason again if I wasn’t still the vampire liaison.
Not that seeing him meant anything. I could not see the guy and get along with my life just great. Better, in fact.
Or that was what I was going to tell myself, anyway.
I just didn’t want Conri to take away the role he’d given me that made me useful to the pack. It had been a long time since I’d felt this useful, like I was actually able to stand by my brother and assist him for once rather than seeking his strength to protect me.
He laughed and it was a darker sound than I was used to.
“Oh, I have no doubt that our business with the vampires is far from concluded. There will be plenty more for our pack’s vampire liaison to do on our behalf.
” He winked quickly. “And now you’re in charge of bayou land, which is no small project in itself.
You might not even have time to liaise with vampires anymore. ”
I’d make time. But I bit my tongue to stop the words from tumbling out. “I think I can still do it. If you need me.” It was a ridiculous, heart-stopping moment as I suddenly hoped he needed me.
I didn’t want to essentially exile myself to land in the bayou and that be it. I was still a wolf, and not a lone one. I needed the pack and the people—even if those people who were supposed to be like me treated me like…well, like shit.
Sadly, they were still my people and always would be.
So I needed them.
“Please?” I didn’t expect to find myself begging, either. “I mean, I need to be useful. I want to be a functional part of your pack.”
He nodded. “I know. And like I said, I’m sure there will be opportunities.”
“With the vampires.” Dammit. I sounded too desperate even to me, and Conri lifted an eyebrow. “I…I actually feel forgotten a lot of the time.” It was true, but it would also shift his attention from my sudden need to the see the vampire.
“Forgotten?” He echoed that one word.
I nodded. “I’m the only human here. The only one who can’t shift. It makes sense that I’m way the hell down the pecking order.”
He puffed up like he’d just engaged all of his muscles at once. “Never say that again,” he said. “You’re the sister of the alpha. You’re at the top of the pecking order, with me.”
I laughed softly. I wanted to believe that. But how could I? “I think we both know I’m not entirely part of the pack.”
He started to shake his head then stopped, like even he couldn’t deny it. Instead, he pulled me into another hug, and his voice rumbled in my ear. “You’ll always be part of this pack, Key. I’ll make sure of it.” Determination rang in his tone, and like everything Conri said, I believed him.
He’d always accepted me, and he’d always made sure I had a place right by his side. No one else had done that in the same way…except…Jason.
My thoughts wandered back to the vampire as I drew away from my brother and I picked the paperwork up from where I’d left it on the table. “I’ll let him know the deal’s done.”
“Yep.” Conri looked serious. “And thank fuck for that.” He shook his head. “Sneaky fuckers. Remind me of this next time I try to do a good deed.”
I chuckled in the face of his apparent grouchiness. “But you don’t regret it?”
He shook his head. “Nope. That human needed me.”
I nodded. And there it was. My brother in a nutshell. Always one to do the exact right thing at the exact time someone needed him to do it. Especially if that someone was human like me.
“Thanks, Conri.” I stood on my tiptoes, rested my hand on his shoulder and kissed his whiskery cheek. “Thank you for always protecting the humans.”
He rested his hand between my shoulder blades. “No problem, kid.”
Warmth lit me from within as he strode away. He rarely called me kid these days, but in those moments, he was just my big brother. No complications, no politics. Just as we were.
Probably as we always would be.
I sighed and followed him from the main house, my feelings mixed as I walked across the land to our smaller cabin.
I enjoyed these new pack lands, probably more so than the ones we’d previously lived on in Baton Rouge.
I’d miss them. But Conri would have our guys build a new home just for me—something I could call my own. I could almost guarantee that.
And although no one would particularly like doing it, it wouldn’t be the first time Conri had asked them to do something they didn’t want to do, and it wouldn’t be the first time they’d resented me.
But I deserved to take on this role. I deserved happiness in whatever form I could find it.
Hopefully, this would be enough.
Would it be enough?
I pushed away the doubt creeping into my thoughts. I didn’t want to address that right now. I had things to do.
I kept my head down, though. I didn’t want to cross paths with Sienna today. I was nearly done with all the bitchy shifter shit. I held the answer in my damn hand, in fact.
Once up in my room, I closed the door, even though I was the only one home.
Conri would be out going about his business and giving various instructions, probably all day.
I wasn’t involved in a lot of the really gritty shifter business, and part of that was Conri’s choice, and part of it was mine.
I didn’t need to know all of the ways the pack made its money.
Especially considering that currently, most of them still skirted the wrong side of the illegal line.
I grabbed my cell phone from where I’d left it charging on my nightstand, and I swiped to Jason’s number. Even reading his name made my stomach flutter disconcertingly, and low-level arousal hummed between my legs.
That fucking guy.
I held the phone to my ear and ignored the traitorous behavior of my body.
“Hey.” Jason’s casual greeting surprised me.
“Uh…Hey.” I guessed hey worked anyway, although it sounded ridiculous. I cleared my throat, determined to be professional. I could do that. “I have the signed deed. Conri’s in on the conservation element.” Just as I’d known he would be—but I didn’t add that part.
“I’ll come and sign it now.” His voice was quiet but urgent, and the tone sent another bolt of desire through me.
I waited for a moment before replying, composing myself as if he could see me. I tucked hair behind my ear and blew out a very slow sigh as I held my phone away from my face. “No, it’s fine,” I said when I was fairly sure my voice would be even. “I’ll bring the deed to you.”
The need to leave pack lands for a little while itched under my skin in a way it never really had before I saw the red wolves, before leaving became a very real possibility. A desire.
Hell, I wanted to run from the pack lands now. Run and watch the wolves in the bayou and absorb the peace and breathe… just fucking breathe.
I didn’t get to breathe here.
“Okay.” Jason sounded agreeable. “I’m at my apartment.”
I hesitated. Those last words almost made my proposition to take the paperwork to him dangerous.
Something about him called to me, and behind a door that closed, I couldn’t guarantee… I stopped, my thoughts grinding to a halt. I didn’t need to create more danger in my mind. I was a professional doing a job for my pack.
I grabbed a scrap of notepaper from a drawer in my room and scrabbled around for something to write with, coming up with a long-blunted eyebrow pencil that I didn’t ever remember using.
“What’s the address?” The pencil shook slightly with the tremor in my hand as I held it poised above the paper, and when Jason responded, I wrote in unfamiliar hard, bold strokes dictated by the shape of the blunted end.
“Okay. Got it. I won’t be long.” I smiled.
I’d essentially invited myself to his house and dictated when I’d be there.
I didn’t waste any time, either. My steps were light as I jogged out to my car, and I laid the paperwork on the passenger seat, looking at it for a moment before I started the engine.
My liaison work had come to this. An end.
I breathed in and exhaled equally as slowly.
It all sounded so final. I laughed at my thought.
Perhaps with every end, there came a new beginning. I glanced deeper into the bayou as I drove toward town. Soon, my life would be in there. That was where my fresh start was.
But my heart tugged in my chest like something was amiss. I didn’t want to know what. Each thump of my heart hurt a little, and I massaged my hand over my chest like I could soothe the source of the pain.
I hadn’t expected this—this feeling of loss. It ached inside me. Like something was gone and left a hole in its place. I didn’t search for what was missing, but the answer reverberated through me anyway.
Jason.
Somehow, he’d wormed his way in and made everything I’d believed about my life confusing. Things were different now. What I thought I deserved from life was different now. My whole life and my outlook were changing because of him, whether either of us had intended that effect or not.
I drew up at the front of a very plain apartment building. Probably worse than merely plain, to be honest. It was dingy. The white stucco was grimy and some of the balconies were broken or piled with pieces of furniture.
What the hell was Jason doing living here? He served at the command of the king. Why had they shoved him out of the way into what amounted to a hidey-hole, like they were ashamed of him?
The urge to defend him rose in me—but defend him against what? His own people? And why?
His living situation was none of my business at all.
I shook my head as I grabbed the papers and stepped from the car, glancing up at the bleak windows as I closed the door.
Nothing moved. It was like no one lived here at all.
It wasn’t the stillness of relaxation or calm.
It watched. A shiver ran through me, and I shook it off.
Being fanciful and overly dramatic had never suited me before, and I wasn’t about to start now.
I still had all of my self-defense skills, so it wasn’t like I couldn’t handle myself if I had to.
Still, I breathed a little faster and examined the shadows a little closer as I walked up the steps toward the address I hadn’t even had to look at to know what it said since the moment I wrote it down.
I entered the building, my confidence more bravado and swagger than true bravery.
This wasn’t the best part of town, and I wasn’t sure what might linger in these particular shadows.
Inside was clean enough, although it was basic, the steps upward bare cement, and my feet echoed against them as I walked upward.
I strode toward the door, something drawing me forward. A promise Jason had never actually made.
But it lingered in the back of my head, in my heart, like he’d spoken the words again and again.
I knocked on the door and waited, calm now that I was here.
Then the door opened and I smiled.
Except my smile didn’t last before I screamed, the sound echoing in the small communal hallway, surprising me, loud as it bounced off the walls.
The man in front of me was a monster. An aberration. A man from stories that even I knew. And he wasn’t supposed to be here.
The mad prince of New Orleans.
My hand shot out before I could stop it, my arm swinging in the kind of punch reliant on the muscle memory Leon had spent hours training into me, and my knuckles landed noisily on the prince’s cheekbone. Pain ricocheted up my arm, and the shock stilled me for a moment.
Then I turned and ran. If he’d killed Jason, and there was no other reason he’d be in his apartment, he’d kill me too. I ran, knowing I had no chance of escape. His vampire speed alone would see to that.
But as each inhale stabbed the inside of my chest, I had to try.
I wanted to live.