Stay

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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover Art: phatpuppyart.com

Photography: Grace Hill

Formatting: Polgarus Studio

I’ve never had good taste in men. I’ve always gone for the bad boys who broke my heart right after getting all they wanted from me in bed. I could have felt sorry for myself about it, but really I was just as much to blame. You know the old saying ‘we can’t choose who we love’? Well, it’s bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. We can choose, but usually we don’t. We give in to our carnal desires and urges, all those secret longings that run completely counter to what we actually need. And the truth is we should. Maybe it’s not the safest thing, and it’s definitely not the smartest, but it’s what makes us feel alive. And if you don’t feel alive, then why bother breathing?

There was no reason for me to wait for him. Jared was an arrogant jerk. An arrogant, Pteron jerk who may or may not have hurt my baby sister. For that possibility alone I should have left him in the cave to rot, but I couldn’t. The weak (read: human) side of me couldn’t. Whether he hurt Casey in the past or not, he was only stuck in the cave because he saved her. And that reality, the one that included Casey being alive and well in the arms of a guy who loved her, was the only reality I could accept. Jared may have been a jerk, but he’d saved the most important person in my life. The only important person in it. And that was why I was still hiding in the brush hours after Casey and Toby took off. I was done waiting around. I had to go after him.

“Vera,” Finn hissed when he saw me emerge from the tree line. I’d luckily found the clothes I’d stowed so I wasn’t naked after shifting back into my human form. I’d learned that lesson the hard way. Always leave extra sets of clothes around.

“Keep your voice down.” I put a finger to my lips. Finn was a decent guy, but he wasn’t the sharpest.

“What are you doing here?” He lowered his voice a fraction. “Murphy is going to know you helped spring your sister. He’s going to kill you. He’ll do whatever he has to in order to keep the boss happy.”

I laughed dryly. “Murphy wouldn’t mind killing me even if it wasn’t for the boss.” I couldn’t even remember what I ever saw in him. Oh yeah, his muscles and ability to piss my parents off just by showing up.

Finn looked away. “I won’t deny my brother’s a psycho.”

“Good, because if you did I’d tell you to stop being delusional.” I couldn’t put into words what Murphy had become. Either he’d hidden his dark side from me, or in the years I’d spent with him that side of him had grown stronger. Maybe it was a mix of both.

“But seriously, Vera. Get lost. Do you have a death wish?” Finn kicked around some dirt.

“I can’t just leave Jared here.” I sounded so lame it disgusted me, but it was the truth. I’d already made up my mind, and I’m the kind of person who never backs down once I’ve made it up. Sometimes that’s a great trait, sometimes it’s not.

Finn grinned. “Oh no. You’ve got it bad for the Pteron, huh?”

“No. Of course not.” Sure, he was hot and from what I surmised from the bulge in his pants I’d noticed when I’d stripped in front of him, he had size going for him, but that didn’t mean I was interested. There were plenty of better options out there.

“Then what is it? I’ve never seen you care about anyone other than yourself or your sister before.” Finn’s words were harsh, but true. I didn’t care about or trust anyone else. Even my parents kept my identity from me my whole life. I didn’t hate my mom, but I had some serious anger. I wasn’t sure what I’d say to her if I ever saw her again.

“And he saved her.” That was the only reason I was ever going to admit.

“I’m sure that’s it.” Finn rolled his eyes. The action made him look even younger. I wondered what kind of man he’d have turned out to be if he hadn’t been under his brother’s influence. Undoubtedly a much better one. The best part of leaving when I did was that Casey got away from me before I could influence her too much. Yet she somehow still got messed up with Jared. At least in the end she picked the right guy. She was a good girl. She deserved a hell of a lot more than I did.

“It is.” I stepped toward him. “Want to keep arguing with me?”

“No.” He held up his hands. “I agree the guy saved Casey. That makes up for the Pteron part.”

“Even after all that crap your brother put in your head you care about her, don’t you?”

He shrugged. “She’s a sweet girl.”

“A sweet girl who you treated like dirt.” I never knew exactly what happened between them, but he’d broken her. She wasn’t the same after the time they spent together, and no matter how helpful he was now, I’d never forgive him for destroying her innocence.

“Only because I had to.” He looked off in the distance. “I needed to keep her away.”

“You shouldn’t have slept with her in the first place.”

“Do you really want to waste time arguing about this right now?” The look of remorse in his eyes was enough.

“No.” I crossed my arms. “How long before everyone else gets back?”

He glanced at his watch. “Soon. They’ve already been gone longer than usual. And get a watch.”

“No thanks.” A watch was just something else to worry about when I shifted.

“You can’t go in there.” He stood up straighter like he was actually going to try to stop me. He was stronger, but I was faster.

“I’m getting tired of this dance.” I stepped around him.

He grabbed my arm. “Listen, I don’t want you dead. Ok?” There was a brutal honesty in his eyes that seemed genuine. “If you’re set on trying to get Jared, then at least give yourself a chance.”

“A chance? What are you getting at?”

He looked over his shoulder. “There’s a back way into the caves.”

“Really?” I’d definitely never heard that before.

“I found it by accident, and I don’t think anyone else knows.”

“And you’re just telling me now? Couldn’t that have helped us earlier?”

“No, because it’s not something you could get through as a human, and your Pteron friend wanted in. It would be a Pteron’s worst nightmare. You’ll have to shift so you can crawl through it. Your bear form is small, no offense, so it should be even easier for you.”

“Considering the circumstances I’ll let it slide.” Female bears were almost always smaller, but I wouldn’t have minded being an exception.

“Good. You’re going to have to go through the woods and around to the north side.” He paused. “You got it?”

“I’m guessing you’re staying here.”

“If I’m not standing guard, I’ll tip them off.”

“True.” I started toward the woods.

“Vera?” He called lightly.

“Yes?”

“You aren’t going to try to take down the boss, right? You’re only going in for Jared?”

“Would I ever do something like that?” I winked. If the opportunity presented itself I’d take the boss down in a heartbeat, but anyone capable of capturing a Pteron, in a cave or not, was dangerous. I wasn’t holding my breath.

After one last glance back at Finn I made my way around toward the north side of the cave.

Casey had been sleeping for hours. We’d barely made it back to my apartment in New York City before she collapsed. I left her sitting on the couch while I made a few phone calls, and by the time I came back she was sound asleep. I’d easily carried her into my room—which I was hoping she’d start considering our room. We hadn’t exactly had a conversation about it in the time since she escaped from the cave, but as far as I was concerned she needed to move in. With the boss, whoever that was, on the loose I was going to minimize the time she spent out of my sight. It’s not that she couldn’t take care of herself, but there was too much going on to leave things up to chance.

She woke up long enough to slide out of her cut off shorts before curling up under the blankets and going back to sleep. The exhaustion made sense on the surface—she’d just been through a crazy ordeal, but she was a Pteron. Our bodies require so little sleep that just passing out like that is rare. It only happens when we’re sick, and Pterons are almost never sick.

I undressed down to my boxers and slipped in next to her. I held her in my arms, watching her slow breathing. She seemed fine, but what if there was something I was missing? As much as he wasn’t my favorite person, I kind of wished Levi was back from his honeymoon. I wanted his take on things. After Casey had fallen asleep I’d placed a quick call to Georgina to let her know Casey was all right. Knowing her, she’d be on her way up to New York already. I was positive she’d be of some help. The woman was intimidating, but she also knew everyone and seemed to have an infinite knowledge base.

Casey stirred, mumbled something incoherently, and then curled up even tighter against me. I rubbed her back gently, needing to touch her and desperate to talk to her. There was so much more to say. I was so in love with Casey, and I didn’t even know what to do with the feelings. She seemed to feel the same way, which almost felt too good to be true. I kept waiting for the other shoe to fall. Things never worked out so easily for me.

“Toby?” She said my name in such a soft voice that I wasn’t sure if she was awake.

“Hey, I’m right here.”

She opened her beautiful blue eyes. “How long have I been sleeping?” She yawned. She still seemed tired.

I tried to hide my concern, but I had to tell her the truth. “Since we got home, it’s been hours.”

She glanced around the room. “We are home, aren’t we?”

I smiled, loving how easily she accepted my bedroom as home. “Yes.”

“Have you heard from Vera or Jared?” She struggled to sit up, so I adjusted the pillows to make it easier. She smiled. “Thank you.”

“Nothing yet, but who knows if either have a working phone, or if they have any service.” I tried to play it off as nonchalant, but I was nervous too. I’d been so worried about Casey that I hadn’t been thinking about it.

“What if something’s happened? It’s been a long time. We need to go back.” She started getting out of bed. “We can’t leave them there.”

I put a hand on her shoulder to get her to stop. “It hasn’t been that long, we need to be patient. We can’t just go back to the cave.”

“Why not? We’ll be prepared. We can go in quietly.” Her hands balled into fists. She wanted to be ready for action, but I couldn’t let her for both selfish and completely logical reasons.

“You just slept for four hours.”

She turned back toward me, and I saw understanding cross her face. “I haven’t slept that long since I transformed for the first time.” Understanding was replaced by panic.

I took her hand in my own. “I know…”

“Yet I’m still tired.” She ran a hand through her messy brown hair. I loved when it looked all tousled. It was Casey at her most real.

“I can tell.”

“Maybe it’s just from all the stress.” She sat up even more.

I let out a deep breath. I had to broach the topic. “Or from something they did to you…”

“They didn’t do anything to me.” She looked away, which meant she was hiding something. “They didn’t do anything.”