Chapter 18
Ciara
Iclutched my phone to my chest for a moment like Jason was actually embodied in it. But he was just the vampire liaison, right?
I lied to myself every time I told myself things like that, and I totally knew it. No man had ever touched me the way Jason had touched me out in the bayou and made me feel all of those things. No man had been allowed.
But Jason hadn’t hurt me or pushed for more or lost himself the way Taylor always seemed to describe the shifter guys doing. I hadn’t felt like he might break me.
It had been the opposite.
It felt like he respected me, treasured me.
Maybe even loved me.
But that was ridiculous. Vampires didn’t fall for wolf shifters, even the human ones. We weren’t compatible. Maybe we were even opposite sides of the supernatural coin.
What we were doing here in New Orleans, forging this kind of uneasy alliance, was almost unheard of. And that was really the only reason Jason and I needed to be anywhere near each other. To ensure everything ran smoothly.
Maybe even to ensure we guarded our own interests and those of our superiors. I was looking after Conri, my brother, my alpha. Jason was looking after his king.
We couldn’t afford to take an interest in each other. Well, I couldn’t, anyway. Not when the vamps had already demonstrated they could be tricky little shits. Even if I kind of understood that part now that Jason had shown me the red wolves.
My pulse sped up and my breathing rate increased as I remembered Jason’s fingers on me…in me. That intimacy was hard to forget. It was hard to not want more.
I was greedy for more.
Like when he’d kissed me at the café and when his body had been pressed to mine. I’d leaned against him like someone had molded us that way, stealing what I wanted from his proximity.
But I shook my head and threw my phone to land on my comforter.
I had a plan now. I was going to live in the bayou with the wolves. Conri had already agreed it, and it was worthy and worthwhile, and I’d be out of everyone’s way.
I was an outsider in this pack. I always would be. So really, I might as well live outside pack lands too, and that wasn’t self-pity talking. It was self-awareness, and hopefully, it would help ensure my safety from people like Sienna.
I reached for my hoodie and tugged it over my head, suddenly cold. The flesh on my arms prickled into goosebumps, and I rubbed them briskly. It was weird. Jason didn’t look at me like I was an outsider of anywhere.
Again, I was reminded that the only other person who did that was Conri. Conri accepted me exactly as I was, and Jason gave me the same vibes. Like I was completely safe to be myself. And that was a luxury I didn’t often feel.
In fact, Jason looked at me like I was important.
And he treated me like someone who could contribute to the world—his world, perhaps—and that was unusual coming from someone who wasn’t family.
Conri almost had to behave that way. He was my brother.
We shared blood. But Jason didn’t have the same tie to me.
In some ways that made his good opinion of me worth more.
My stomach rumbled and I headed downstairs to forage for some food in our small kitchen. The communal kitchen was always better stocked than the one we had at home, but I didn’t feel like being around any of the others right now. I’d made the decision to move away, and I was happy with that.
I was already mentally detaching, and there was no longer any need to be as present in public. I didn’t even need to see Leon. I wouldn’t exactly need a lot of self-defense in the middle of nowhere.
I buttered my slice of white bread—it smelled okay but the date was pretty far out, although we never had to worry about expiration dates. It was the only shifter superpower I shared with the others but I couldn’t exactly complain, because it was at least useful.
Conri pushed the backdoor open and stepped inside. He leaned against the wooden frame. “Hey.” He tilted his chin expectantly, and I held up my knife.
“Sandwich?” I had no idea what I was going to put in mine.
Maybe jelly if I scraped the thin layer of mold off the top first. The peanut butter looked okay, though.
That stuff had a shelf-life and a half. We rarely ate at home, so when we did it was more a case of foraging than cooking or making something.
He shook his head. “Nope. I’m heading back out. Just wanted to stop by and say I’m taking you off patrol.”
I stopped, my knife suddenly motionless against the bread. “What?” I’d already warmed up, but his words chilled me all over again.
It was one thing to decide myself that I was detaching, it was entirely another thing for my brother to push me out.
I looked at him. “What the hell, Conri? I can still contribute. I can still fight. I always do my patrols when I’m actually asked to do them—I know I’m last in line, but I never let you down.”
His tightened his jaw—a familiar move that told me something was absolutely nonnegotiable as far as he was concerned. No one ever argued against him when he wore this face.
But no one else in this pack was his sister. On this occasion, being his sister outranked his role as alpha. Pissed sister, anyway.
“You’ve never left me out before, Conri. Don’t start now. What kind of message does that send to the others about my value?”
He pressed his lips tight and scratched his cheek, the noise of his stubble rasping filling me with rage that I quickly quashed. I wouldn’t convince him to change his mind by having a temper tantrum.
“You’d think you might actually be grateful,” he said slowly. “I’m taking my responsibilities as your alpha seriously, and I’m keeping you safe.”
“Keeping me safe?” My words were clipped, the closest to barking them I ever came. “You’re fucking marking me out as different.”
Conri growled low in his throat. “I don’t like your tone,” he said. “And you need to adjust your attitude. I’ve been accused of neglecting your safety at the hands of other pack members.” He smirked a little, more smug than I usually saw him. “So now I’m not.”
“What the hell?” I said again. “So now you’re making decisions based on your fu—” I broke off. He hadn’t liked me swearing at him before, and his wolf had responded. So I wasn’t going to try that again. “You’re making decisions based on your pride?”
“Fuck off,” Conri shot back. “I’m making decisions based on being your alpha.
Your safety is my priority. And I’m making decisions based on being your brother.
Your safety is one of my biggest concerns.
I can’t let anything happen to you.” His tone didn’t soften as he switched between explaining his two roles, but his eyes grew more tired, and the creases around them deepened.
Part of me wanted to yell. Where had this overprotective guy been when members of his pack had been hurting me? Had my alpha been ignoring that? Had my brother? But as I parted my lips to ask, I focused on Conri’s eyes and the shadows beneath them.
He was tired. He was tired and he was sad.
This duality between us was hard on him too.
And I really had no choice but to obey him. The alpha of the pack could command me to do whatever the hell he wanted, and I couldn’t argue. Even as a pissed sister. When I did argue, if Conri gave way, that was a battle he was willing to concede as my brother.
This wasn’t a battle he was going to concede.
That didn’t stop my irritation, though.
But I still loved him. And I’d never hurt him just to score cheap points.
I lifted my cutting board and crossed the kitchen to the trash can before dumping my bread inside it with as much flourish as I could manage. Then I looked at my brother.
“Off you go, then. Now that you’ve told me, you don’t need to be here anymore.”
“I’m not going to apologize for keeping you safe, Key,” he said, his voice low.
“Of course not.” I turned my back. “Why would the alpha ever apologize?” Even if he was fucking wrong.
To apologize would be to show weakness, and Conri couldn’t afford to do that. Even with me. Maybe especially with me.
And perhaps I was being a brat after he’d agreed to let me move and live apart from the pack, but disappointment burned like a bitch. I still wanted to be a member of the pack—although maybe more on my terms than was reasonable when Conri was the boss.
“Con.” I spun around, but the doorway was empty, and the door was swinging shut behind him.
He hadn’t stayed for my apology, and that chilled me further still, but I could tell him the next time I saw him. We never really argued for long, but we’d also never had as many issues as this between us all at one time.
Something was definitely different, and I didn’t like it.
I shivered a little as I stepped forward to lock the back door. I didn’t want any more unexpected visitors, and Conri could let himself in the front with his key once his business for the day was concluded.
I probably just needed to head to bed and stress-sleep the rest of the day away so I got to tomorrow quicker.
Maybe a bath first. That would help calm me down after my argument with Conri, right? I hated arguing with my brother, and I rarely begrudged him his role in the pack, but him sidelining me completely grated across each of my nerves, leaving them exposed and raw.
It was as if I wasn’t independent anymore or able to make a decision to better myself. I felt cast out. Gone before I’d left. Where I should have been excited about moving forward, and I wanted Conri’s support, that excitement had turned cold, and it weighed heavy now. A stone sitting in my gut.
By deliberately distancing me, he was making me other, cementing my position as the useless one in the pack. What was next? Taking away my vampire liaison role because that was suddenly too dangerous, too? What next? Wrapping me in bubble wrap and storing me away?
I sighed as I locked the door to my bedroom before I went into my bathroom and started to fill the tub. I wanted to keep the whole world out tonight.