Hunger for You (Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts) (14 page)

“Everyone has their own path, Caleb. Human or otherwise. I had to accept that about my mother, that’s how I could leave her and my sister and brother there in that house on my eighteenth birthday. I walked away because that was my path to take. My mother stays because that is hers. You kept coming back to that bar, sitting there ordering wings and nachos and Blue Moons because you felt the same thing I did. You felt that we were meant to be, that we were mates or what you call them,
companheiros
.”

“You talk too much,” was his curt reply as he turned away from me again.

“True,” I agreed, moving closer to where he stood but not touching him. “And you don’t listen well enough.”

“I’ve heard that before,” he grumbled.

“I won’t leave you, if that’s what you’re thinking. I won’t turn my back on you to go back to my people or my world.” I stepped to him then, putting both my palms in the center of his broad back, moving them over his shoulder blades, down his sides until I had wrapped my arms around his waist. I lay my cheek against him, listening to the steadiness of his heartbeat, hearing that it now matched the rhythm of my own. I inhaled deeply and loved the scent that moved through me, swirling
around and cocooning my heart. “And I won’t tell the secret because I love you and who and what you are too much to ever put you in that type of danger.”

I held on for what seemed like endless moments, loving the feel of him in my arms but really needing him to respond so I wouldn’t feel like a total ass.

If it was sweet words I really craved, they would not come. If I thought the next actions would be right out of a swooping romance novel, I would have been beyond wrong. Instead, Caleb turned to me, his cat’s eyes still glaring. His strong hands grabbed my ass once more, lifting me right off the floor and carrying us both back to that futon. He was over me seconds after he laid me on the chair, his hands ripping away my panties with one quick yank.

I opened my mouth to speak but was silenced by his lips on mine, his kiss hungrier than I’d ever experienced and sweeter than I—or any romance novel writer—could have ever imagined. So, okay, I wouldn’t talk, I’d simply take this rush of desire, this burst of heat so potent it took my breath away. His hands moved quickly, as his tongue delved deeper, dueling with mine. My hands were in his hair, nails raking over his scalp as I tried to keep up, tried to take all that I possibly could of him.

In mere seconds he’d unbuckled his pants, freeing his arousal. His teeth scraped along the line of my jaw as both
hands resumed gripping my bottom, lifting me slightly off the chair to meet the quick and deep thrust as he entered me. I gasped, arched my back, then sighed as he spoke.

“I know that you’re my
companheiro,
” he said, his voice gruff in my ear. “I’ve known that you were mine since first seeing you.”

His words were a thin layer over the deep thrusts he made and I matched. They hovered in the air around us, cocooning us, sealing the fate we now both accepted. I loved this moment, this feeling, this complete absorption that until this exact moment I’d only had the pleasure of reading about.

“I know about the human world and the shifter world and I don’t give a damn about any of them,” he continued.

My fingers were digging into his back, my eyes half-closed, mouth opened as I gasped and whispered his name. So when he suddenly stopped all movement I wanted to stop breathing, forever.

“I don’t give a damn about anything but you.” Caleb was looking at me then, not with his cat’s eyes but with his dark brown ones, filled with lust and desire and something that pricked a tiny hole in my heart. “I only care about you and being everything I can be to make you happy, to make you understand that I love you.”

Tears immediately filled my eyes as that tiny hole in my heart was filled with his words, the sincerity of them, the totality of them. Caleb lowered his head and kissed the first tear to fall and I gasped his name.

“I love you,” I whispered, and he began to move over me once more. It wasn’t fast and fevered, hungry and needy as it was a few moments ago, but slow, tender, meaningful, and I loved every minute of it. I loved every part of him.

It had been three weeks since we left Florida. Marta was doing much better after the remedies Ary Delgado had supplied for her—remedies that were not of the human world. Ones that I would be forever grateful for because I never wanted to lose Marta, I never wanted to lose the best mother I could have ever asked for.

Marta and Zoe hit it off immediately as Zoe had quickly taken to helping Ary with whatever she needed to keep Marta comfortable. I spent more hours watching the two females that meant the most in this world to me together than I could count. Watching the human and the shifter bond regardless of their obvious and not-so-obvious differences.

I grew up a lot in those days of watching and listening and allowing myself to believe. Running was cowardice, avoiding was
disastrous, and not living was downright criminal. Gil had told me that and I believed him wholeheartedly.

I came back to D.C. with Aidan and Brayden, and missed Zoe desperately as she stayed behind to continue to help Gil with Marta. Training beside my brothers was like old times. The three of us didn’t miss a beat in the physical tasks required of us. We spent hours behind closed doors with Nick Delgado going over security issues and weak points and even more hours with X reviewing the human government infrastructure, until finally, the day had come.

Havenway was still in its early days and most of the old buildings were in various stages of construction, but we’d been summoned to what was being called “the briefing room.” It was a little after noon as I closed the door to the room I’d been assigned to and walked down the long hallway. I knew what this was about, knew what going in there would mean and I was okay with it. I knew who I was and why I was put here and I was ready to take the next step.

Knowing that Zoe was waiting for me in the house where I’d spent a lot of my teen years had a lot to do with my acceptance. She knew everything there was to know about me and she was still there, still waiting for me, still loving me. My heart swelled with the thought because I never thought I’d have someone like
her, with feelings that rivaled my own. I just never assumed this was where my life would end up.

“You ready for this?” Aidan said, meeting me as he entered the hallway from another direction.

We were wearing the black cargo pants, T-shirts, and black industrial boots that had become our uniform as of late.

“I’m as ready as you are,” was my reply.

He reached for my arm. “Just checking,” he said with a grin.

Aidan had checked daily for the bracelet.
Topètenia
males received a leather bracelet with the
Topètenia
insignia branded along its length, after their first completed shift, usually around the age of sixteen. I hadn’t worn mine since I’d turned eighteen and left the Sanchezes. The morning after Zoe arrived in Florida I’d put it on. She’d touched the leather and asked me about the bracelet and I’d explained it to her, told her about the transition of the
Topètenia
shifters from child to shifter to soldier. She’d smiled at me and pride had swelled in my chest. Today, I looked over at Aidan’s matching bracelet and felt that same pride.

“I’m here one hundred percent,” I told him. “You don’t have to doubt that anymore.”

Aidan nodded. “So am I.”

“Good to hear.” Brayden came up behind us, clapping us on the shoulder. “Thought I was going to have to take both of you out for going AWOL.”

“Nah, we would never let you stand and take all the glory of becoming a guard alone,” Aidan joked.

“Never that,” I added.

It felt good, this walk down the hall with my brothers. The bond we’d built over the years had intensified, our connection sealed.

It wasn’t until we entered the briefing room that our joking moods subsided. There was a stage toward one end and a podium with a sound system had been set up there. Behind the stage the wall was draped in black, the
Topètenia
insignia in a vibrant green color. The floor was a dark laminate with cushioned chairs lined in rows of twenty across, ten down each side with a three-foot-wide aisle in between.

Lidia joined us and we walked two by two down the aisle, stopping just in front of the stage. Nick and X came up on either side of the four of us and Roman Reynolds, the East Coast Faction Leader stood behind the podium.

The ceremony was brief, our status as special operative shifter guards sealed and applauded by all those in attendance. But I didn’t feel the significance of the whole thing until
later that evening. It was after dinner when Rome came to where we sat in the dining hall.

“It’s time,” was all he’d said.

We all knew to get up and follow him out. None of us spoke as we moved through one long hallway after another until finally stopping at a steel door. The Faction Leader typed a number on the keypad just beneath the knob. There was a loud click and the door slid sideways, instead of opening outward. Rome walked through and we followed. There were no lights on, but none were needed. About a quarter of a mile in I saw the first candle and then a room that opened up to at least two hundred more. They lined the walls, casting the space in an eerie glow.

The Faction Leader was immediately approached by another guard and draped in a black robe that tied at his neck with a silver rope. Out of the shadows appeared two more cloaked in gray robes. They came to stand on the side of the FL. A small table was brought before the FL, a needle and ink on top.

“Aidan Sanchez,” the FL called solemnly and Aidan stepped forward.

I watched as my oldest brother removed his T-shirt and knelt on his knees as the
Topètenia
insignia was tattooed onto his back. When he was finished, Aidan stood and Rome came over to him. The FL placed both hands on Aidan’s shoulders and
whispered some words to him. Aidan nodded and Brayden’s name was called.

I would be next. I would step forward and point to where I wanted the tat, then it would be done and it would be official. I would be a
Topètenia
shifter for the rest of my life.

Twenty minutes later my right bicep stung as the needle applied the ink, branding me. When I stood my teeth were clenched, eyes trained on the FL standing in front of me.

“You were one. Now you are of many. You are a
Topètenia
and we are bonded. My strength,” the FL continued, cupping his hand to my bicep. I did as I’d seen Brayden and Aidan do before me, twisting my arm around the outside of the FL’s to grab his wrist.

“My strength,” I repeated.

“Our strength,” we said in unison.

When I returned to my room that night the first thing I did was call Zoe. As I lay on the bed waiting for her to pick up the phone, I touched the tat lightly.

“Hey there,” she answered, her voice light and happy.

I smiled at the sound. “Hey yourself.”

“How’d it go?”

“It went great,” I admitted. “It feels right.”

“It is right. You’re right where you should be,” she insisted.

“And you’re with me.”

“Absolutely.”

“I love you, my
companheiro,
” I told her with warmth and emotion swarming around the tat, similar to the way it did whenever she touched me there.

“And I love you, my
companheiro
.”

Lisa Fleet Photography.

A.C. Arthur
was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, where she currently lives with her husband and three children. An active imagination and a love for reading encouraged her to begin writing in high school and she hasn’t stopped since. Her debut novel
Object of His Desire
was written when a picture of an Italian villa sparked the idea of an African-American/Italian hero. Determined to bring a new edge to romance, she continues to develop intriguing plots, sensual love scenes, racy characters, and fresh dialogue—thus keeping the readers on their toes! Visit her at:
www.acarthur.net
.