Shifting Shadows (Sparks Collide Trilogy) (2 page)

“You know the veterinarian you are
working for? Well one of them is his nephew and the other two are his friends.
By the way here’s your cup, hand me mine.” I switched with her and she started
to fill her own.

I took another quick glance around at
the corner where she had pointed, then turned back to her “Oh, James is over
there? I was hoping I would meet him, Doc told me all about him.”

“Exactly, let’s go over and say hi but
don’t call him James, he goes by Jay.” I nodded and followed her, excited to
meet someone I sort of know, or at least I knew his uncle.

I took a sip as we walked and asked
“Chris, which one is he?”

She smiled broadly “The tall one.”

I looked over and laughed because
standing there were the three tallest guys in the room, probably at the whole
party. “Ha-ha, they’re all pretty tall.”

“Yeah, I know. Isn’t it great? They’re
all built like Adonis too. Too bad they know it. Longest any girl gets with Jay
or any of his friends is about three dates, if they’re lucky. But don’t worry
they’re all nice enough.”

“Well that’s good” I said hoping I’d be
able to make friends in my new town.

“Come on let me introduce you to the
giants.”

“All right, which one is James?”

“
Jay
is the one in the middle,
with the medium brown hair and purple eyes.” Nearing closer to them, I got a
better look and noticed that his eyes, focused on his phone, were a
purplish-blue color. It was startling and beautiful.

 
As we approached them, the other two guys were
huddled over him, looking at something on his phone. Christina shouted, “Hey
Trent.” The first guy turned around, his hair was very short, almost shaved and
a bright red color. He also had striking eyes. They were an emerald green and
when he smiled it lit up his whole face.

“Christina, how’s it going? I haven’t
seen you in a while.”

The third boy, a blond with hazel eyes
looked up then. “Yeah, don’t you like us
anymo
-…
aand
who’s your friend?”

Christina placed her hands on her hips.
“Oh, stop, of course I like you still but don’t get any ideas. I’ve been dating
Xander recently and you know it. Also this is my roommate Kira. ”She turned
back to me “Kira, this is Trent, Jay, and Logan.”

I couldn’t help my smile. They were all
gorgeous. Tall and handsome in their own ways with defined muscles. I did
however notice a few bruises here and there on them as well. “Hey”

Trent
put his hand out to shake mine but
Logan
beat him to it by placing his hand out
in front of
Trent
’s.

I laughed and shook one then the other.
“Pleasure”
Trent
said and
Logan
winked at me.

I put my hand out to shake Jay’s but he
was in no hurry to put down his phone. When he finally did, he grabbed my hand.
When he let go he was smirking at me like he had won the game I hadn’t known we
were playing.

“Kira’s working for your uncle, Jay.”

Jay, who had looked relaxed and almost
bored, suddenly became sharp and focused, his eyes whipping over me like a wind
storm.
“My uncle, Eric?”

I nodded, “Yes. He talks about you a
lot. He’s been really great so far.”

He looked irritated. Christina snorted,
“Jeeze Jay, I think you’d be happy. Doc needs help over there.”

He rolled his eyes and looked bored
again. “I’m just surprised he took on an intern, he never does.”

“Well, I’m not an intern, at least not
yet. I’m going to work at the front desk. I got here a few days ago because I
landed this summer job and if the Doc thinks I’m a good fit, he’ll let me
intern there as an assistant when Vet school starts up in the fall. He
mentioned he had a very kind and generous nephew named James.”

He raised an eyebrow at the challenge,
then he smiled, “Snarky, aren’t you? Well, I’ll have to thank him for such high
but inaccurate praise. I guess I’ll be seeing you at the office.”

“Sure. You go there often?” I asked.

Logan
smiled “Oh yeah we’re all there all
the time. You need anything, you ask us and maybe one of these days you’ll
convince Christina here to give this poor suffering soul another shot.” He
pointed to himself, made pleading puppy dog eyes.

“Oh
puhh
-lease”
Christina retorted. “You just want what you can’t have. I’m on to you.”

Trent
laughed “She’s right you know, he’s
insane that way-Oww.” The last part was the response to being smacked on the
back of the head.

Logan
glared at him, “Shut it man.”

Someone opened the sliding glass door
and the music blasted in again. I attempted to be heard over it. “Cool, it’ll
be nice to know some people in town.”

Christina grabbed my arm, nearly spilling
my beer “Well Kira and I better get going. I promised
Xander
we would
meet him and play pool.”

Logan
grabbed his chest. “Why do you keep
breaking my heart this way, it’s very unkind.”

Christina beamed, “You can take it.”

 
I noticed
Trent
staring at Jay with a smirk but Jay
was looking at me. “Nice meeting you, Kira. I’m sure we’ll see you soon.”

I looked away from his captivating
gaze. “Bye Guys”

 
Logan
perked up, his heartbreak apparently
over and done with. “Bye.”

Christina stuck her tongue out at him
and turned us both to go.

Trent
smacked my shoulder, “Dude, what was
that all about?” He gestured to where Kira and Christina had just stood. I
watched the girl until she was out of sight, her long, dark hair flowing behind
her.

“It doesn’t seem right that a human be
working with my uncle. He’s never let humans work with him before, never. He’s
the pack’s doctor for freaking sake. She could see something or overhear
something that she shouldn’t and we’d all be screwed.”

Logan
was already smiling at some chick
across the room but turned to me “I feel like Doc would already know that
though, so he must have hired her for a reason. Plus he runs a legit business.
It’s not like anything supernatural really goes down in there.”

“Yeah and even if she did see
something, who would she tell? She just got here.”
Trent
added. I picked up my drink from the
counter in front of me and took a sip. It didn’t sit right with me, what did we
know about her? She was some pretty girl with dark hair and big blue eyes who
loved animals. Sorry if I’m not fooled by her beguiling ways. That didn’t
exactly tell me her life story. More importantly why did no one else feel
something messed up about her sudden appearance in our lives?

“We should look into this.”
Logan
whistled

“Not a problem, I’ll spend plenty of
time getting to know her.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

Trent
laughed “Yeah, I bet you’ll try.”

“Hey, don’t say I never took one for
the team.”

I stared him down “Well you’re not taking
this one, until we know more about her, back off.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He headed over to a
group of blondes in the corner, giggling drunkenly. They latched onto him like
they were starving and he was a four course meal. It was everyday crap around
us though and it was getting old.

I swallowed the rest of my drink in one
gulp and took off for the band playing outside.
Trent
followed. “Look man, I know you’ve
been bored lately but this girl is no one. She doesn’t need a full on
investigation.” I sighed as we stepped onto the back patio, the music was loud
but with our hearing we could understand each other just fine. He was right. I
had been bored, restless even. It seemed no matter what shit I caused, it
didn’t make any difference. It used to. It was like a game. Go out, wreak havoc
in the supernatural underground, see Dad for the first time in weeks, get
yelled at for my idiocy, and then be ignored again. It was a vicious cycle but
recently, my father didn’t even put effort in his “Don’t be
an
a
-hole” speech. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize he’d given
up on me.

“Yeah, you’re right. Doc’s no idiot and
it doesn’t matter anyway.” He gave one sharp pat to my back and waved at some
girls in the crowd.

“Running later?” He asked as he walked
toward the girls.

“Yeah” I lied, as I called back. More
like now. I turned into the woods behind me and was gone.

Driving back to the apartment, I kept
checking on Christina to see if she’d fallen asleep yet in the backseat. I told
her it was ok if she wanted to go with Xander instead but she insisted and
mumbled something about the chase. She was a bit toasted but I took her at her
word.

Tonight had been fun. We had played
pool and I wasn’t as abysmal at it as I had expected. Before we left, Chris and
I even danced a little. I don’t know if the music was good but the band was
loud, with a steady beat and that was enough for me. I even met a few other
people. Most of them were at
Brisdale
University
too. That left me wondering.

“Chris, do Jay, Trent, and Logan go to
Brisdale U, too?”

“Yes, yes, and no” she slurred “Jay’s
there, getting his m-a-asters in
polit
,
politicical
? No,
political
science, although really he just messes around but Trent’s going into his
second year as a law student and Logan went into the real world after under-
drag
as an advertising exec.”

I assumed she met undergrad and
continued. “And
Logan
still comes to house parties?”

“Well, yeah if you grew up here then
you hang out with the locals, a party is a party and it’s the weekend.
Woooo
.” She shouted the last part.

I nodded, “makes sense.” From my
rearview mirror I saw her sit up.

“So which one are you interested in?
Logan
? No, I bet
it’s
Jay.”

“No, he was kind of rude, actually.” I replayed
meeting him in my mind and all I could picture were his eyes, alight and
focused on me. The intensity in them had turned the color impossibly more
purple. “I’m not interested in any of them, at least not right now. I was just
curious.”

She snorted and sang “Whatever you
sa
-ay.” I rolled my eyes and parked the car outside our
building. Our apartment wasn’t very big but it was mine. It meant my freedom
and I loved every speck of it.

Trent
caught up to me about an hour later in
the woods behind my house. I was eating an orange off one of the trees. I saw
the red-brown coat of his wolf form come around the bend and I threw an orange
to him. He spit out the clothes he was holding and caught it in his mouth as he
came to sit by me. He played with the orange for a while with his paws until I
grabbed it, peeled it, and handed it back to him. He whined happily and ate it.

It was nice never having to worry about
being seen because the woods and the entire neighborhood belonged to the pack.
We lived in the gated, exclusive community of Wyldwoods Estates. It held large,
opulent homes all built by Porter, a member of the pack who happened to be the
contractor for us all. The thing about this neighborhood wasn’t the huge houses
or the acres of woods held behind the houses. No, it was the fact that only
Werewolves lived here. If you’re not in our pack, you’re not moving in behind
these gates and that was that.

Moments later, a naked
Logan
appeared from behind the trees,
holding his clothes in his hands. He was cracking his joints and stretching
out, obviously having just changed back into human form. “Hey, want an orange?”
He shook his head and began to re-dress, holding up his pants and stepping into
them.

“Why did you leave the party so early,
man? You missed out on some very hands on ladies.” A yip noise came from
Trent
in agreement.
Logan
’s hazel eyes looked satisfied and I
wondered the last time I’d felt that satisfied with anything.

 
“Don’t know. Don’t you guys ever get sick of
the same girls, the same town, and the same shit?”

Logan
nodded “I guess but it’s not like we
don’t have diversity. We live in a college town.”

I pushed my hands through the grass and
felt comforted by the dirt beneath it. “A private college that mostly townies
go to but the few new people that come around don’t stick around. After a few
years they get to leave and have lives.”