Brush With Death
Brush with Death
By E.J. Stevens
Brush
with Death
E.J.
Stevens
Published
by Sacred Oaks Press
Copyright
2012 E.J. Stevens
All
rights reserved
Publisher’s
Note
This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Emma
I
bit my lip to stifle
a gasp. Simon was leaving another trail of kisses down my neck that made me
tingle all over.
How could this be wrong, when it felt so right?
I am not the kind of girl who falls for the wrong guy.
Really. My entire life has been a series of good choices. I have always done
the responsible thing. So what was I doing here with an older guy?
Oh yes, the kisses. That had something to do with it,
definitely.
I reached up to brush hair out of hungry eyes that promised
a world of new pleasures.
Tease.
I slid my fingers along the line of
scar tissue that crossed his handsome face, drawing a low rumble from his
chest. Somehow that candle-wax smooth skin added to his amazing looks. I
pressed myself against him, melting into Simon like I was made of wax too.
With another growling rumble, he grasped my shoulders and gently pushed me away.
For someone who prided himself as a lady’s man, he sure
wasn’t moving fast. Most guys my age are a raging river during spring rains and
snow melt. They move fast and hard and are all over the damn place. Yuck.
Simon is a river of honey, slow and sweet.
Not that I eat honey. I’m against bee oppression, but you
get the idea.
Simon is a gentleman and I like that about him, but some
days I wished he’d stop putting on the brakes. I wanted to continue our
kissing, but I guess he could only take so much. Secretly, that made me feel
crazy powerful.
So Simon was older and had a bad reputation. I knew all of
that. I wasn’t naïve. I had entered into this relationship with eyes wide
open. In fact, I’d resisted my feelings for nearly a year.
What had changed? Hello, like, everything. My best friend
was plagued by ghosts, her boyfriend was a werewolf, and I could talk to
snakes. But the big change? I was about to graduate from high school. I’d
already been accepted into the pre-med veterinary program at Tufts University,
a state away. Even Cornell had sent a letter asking me to visit their campus.
Everything was changing, fast. I would be leaving at summer’s end. It was now
or never.
Deep down, I knew that part of the reason I chose now was my
recent brush with death. I had been in a car accident and was lucky to be
alive. Surviving that accident had brought clarity to my feelings for Simon.
When I woke up in the hospital, his was the face I longed to see.
I made my decision.
I decided to follow my heart. I chose us. I chose now. I
didn’t regret it for one second. Well, not really. Did I feel guilt, worry, and
confusion? Hell yes, but I wasn’t confused about my feelings for Simon. He
made me inordinately happy. There was no denying that.
Our relationship, as Yuki would say, was made of awesome. Sure,
Simon and I didn’t agree on everything. That was part of the attraction. We
could debate all of the things we disagreed on…intensely.
No, the thing I was having trouble with, the problem that
made me hesitate each time I sank into Simon’s arms, was the objection of my
friends. Calvin and Yuki weren’t the most normal couple in the world, so you’d
think they’d be able to see outside the box of social norms. Unfortunately,
they kept getting hung up on the details—Simon was older, he was a total bad
boy, and a studly werewolf.
I guess they were used to me dating harmless human guys,
like Gordy. I could understand that, to a point. If I continued dating normal
high school guys, they wouldn’t have to worry about me. But didn’t their judging
of my relationship make them hypocrites? Why couldn’t they accept my choice?
Why couldn’t my friends just get over it already?
Simon
A
s soon as I
pushed Emma away, tension wracked her body like an unyielding electric
current. I wanted to pull her back to me and kiss away the tears, which she
remained unaware of, that rolled steadily down her flushed cheeks to glisten on
the creamy pale skin of her neck.
But I could only provide a temporary distraction to Emma’s
troubled thoughts. I was not the cause of her frustration.
Well, we were adept at causing each other a high degree of
physical
frustration, but the issue eating away at Emma’s happiness, like a hungry
zombie gnoshing on brains, had another cause entirely.
That cause was the very reason that vampires and zombies
filled my subconscious, and therefore my metaphors. Emma’s best friend Yuki,
an exasperating Goth girl who could sense ghosts through smells, didn’t approve
of our relationship.
Up until now, Yuki had refrained from the emo behavior typical
of most Goth teens whom I’d encountered in the past. When I began training
Yuki, I was impressed by her positive attitude and bull-headed stubbornness,
though that stubbornness caused plenty of arguments between us. She had been
through a lot in her short life and that was something I could relate to. I
had even begun to entertain the notion that we could be friends.
But that was before I started dating Emma. Suddenly, Yuki
acted like she’d been possessed by one of her smelly ghost mates, left to wail
and moan and pout incessantly about the loss of her best friend to an old, nasty,
roguish werewolf.
Where, I ask, is the fairness there?
Yuki herself is dating a werewolf, my alpha Calvin, so
playing the “
you can’t date a guy who shapeshifts into a wolf”
card was
a pitiful attempt to derail our relationship. I can also assure you that I am
not nasty. I maintain impeccable hygiene and grooming. And, if we are to cast
stones, my wolf spirit smells like pine needles and puppy breath, unlike
Calvin’s spirit who reeks of wet dog.
As for the roguish bit, I’ve changed. I fully admit to a
dark time in my life, before I met Emma. I did things that I am not proud of.
It is easy to be a scoundrel when you have nothing to live
for.
Now I have an important role in my pack and a woman who I
care for deeply. I am not the innocent man I was before the dark period of my
life, before my first love Meredith died at the hands of a hunter and I cast my
destiny to the wind…and the needle, but I hope that I am worthy of Emma’s
heart.
How will we ever know if we are truly destined for one
another if Yuki continues to hold her friendship hostage? And Calvin is only
making our situation worse by supporting Yuki’s ridiculous behavior. I know
deep within my shared soul that I can make Emma happy, if her friends would
only give us a chance.
When I first met Emma and Yuki, I thought their bond was
unbreakable…something seldom seen in humans. It angers me that my relationship
with Emma should be the cause for that rare jewel of a friendship to shatter.
What the bloody hell are Calvin and Yuki thinking?
I balled my right fist and bit my knuckle hard enough to
draw blood. I pulled my eyes from Emma’s anguished, far-away gaze to look at
the blood that pooled at the base of my thumb. Werewolves don’t suck blood
like pop-culture vampires, but in my world blood matters—just not in the way
you think.
The blood of the Old Ones coursed through my veins, marking
me as werewolf, as
other
, and aligning me to our pack. I obey my pack
alpha, and have sworn to protect him with my very life, but I hadn’t known then
the pain that he would come to cause my new mate.
My bloodied hand would heal with a speed that was driven by my
werewolf metabolism, but when would Emma’s heart mend?