Authors: Harmony Raines
Tags: #General Fiction
“You’re a cat.” It was obvious to her, as plain as the glint in Darius’s eyes last night. Was there a connection? Even worse, was this a trap? Gain her trust so she would tell him everything? The more she thought about it, the more plausible that sounded.
“I don’t know what I am, other than a freak. And by the collar around your neck, I’m guessing you are a freak too.” He ran as if he wasn’t carrying her, swift on his feet, his eyes alert.
“Yes … since you mention it, I am, but I’m proud of my freakish nature.”
“Good for you.” His reply was cutting. “While me, I have no use for it other than to be the best cage fighter in the city, which I was until you showed up.”
“Great career choice. How much do you owe on your contract?” she asked, her head resting on his chest, his heartbeat lulling her into a false sense of security, because there was no way she was safe, not from the men chasing them, and not from this predator.
“I don’t have a contract.” They had reached the street now, and she knew how conspicuous they looked. Two shifters, one injured, running through the streets, were going to attract much too much attention. Plus, while he held her so close, she had no way to escape him either.
If that was what she was going to do. Damn, this was so confusing. Her horse, silent in her head once more, had said this man was her mate, but how could she be sure?
“You need to put me down.” She loosed her grip on his neck, although she longed to cling to him. Damn, she had it bad, or maybe they had drugged her. That might be it, because she had a strong feeling that if they weren’t mates, then she wouldn’t be able to stand the guy. He had an arrogance about him that didn’t sit well with her.
“OK.” He let her slip to the floor, supporting her weight just enough for her to begin to walk slowly on it. “I’ll take you to the border, but not on foot. We need to find transport.”
“I have no money; they took my purse.” She looked behind them. They couldn’t go back and get it. But at least they weren’t being followed.
Possibly because that was part of the plan
. Well, she would play along with it, for now, and then try to make a run for the border at the first opportunity. “What do we do? We need to get there as quick as we can.”
“Wait, stop talking as if I was going with you.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” she asked, testing his story. “Why would you stay here if you don’t have a contract?”
“Because if I go to the Prime, I’ll be killed.”
“And if you stay here?” she asked, still not convinced.
He shook his head. “Like I said, I have a life here. Right now I should be in bed, fucking my reward.”
“And is that what you would rather do?” She stopped, making him look at her. “Tell me, you can feel it too?”
“I don’t know what I feel, except like a damn fool. I am not a hero, I’m not a knight in shining armour, I just want you out of my life.”
Trying to get my sympathy by playing the injured hero, good move
, she thought. But for now, he was all she had.
He didn’t mean a word of it of course. The lure of the Prime had always been there, nagging at him. It’s what had drawn him here after Philippe died, like a forbidden treasure. And so he had become a fighter, instead of living the simple life of a European bum.
However, Kieran had been bought up to fear the Prime, to fear what was on the other side of that border. His guardian, Philippe, had always made it plain that they were on the run, that somebody was hunting them, somebody who would find them one day, and finish the job they had started when Kieran was a child.
Everyday Philippe had gone through the same routine of checking nobody was following them, that they never had anything on them that could be traced. They lived simply, travelling up through Europe taking on summer jobs, working on farms where no one cared that they were shifters as long as they worked hard. Kieran had enjoyed it, enjoyed the freedom; that was, until he understood what he really was. That he was a freak.
Philippe had kept the details from Kieran, had never told him what he was, and who exactly they were running from. Even on his deathbed, the only words of advice he could pass on to Kieran were to never go to the Prime, and never trust anyone.
Left alone, Kieran had struggled to make a living. Fed up of fruit picking and living a life on the road, he had been drawn towards the border between the human world and the Prime. Making a living street fighting, he had done OK, still keeping a low profile, moving around as much as he could, until Lance had taken him under his wing and made his life more settled. For the first time, Kieran had a home; for the first time he stayed in one place for more than a month.
His success in the cage gave him confidence, made him train harder to make himself invincible, so that one day he would never have to fear whatever lurked in the Prime. And this was the very reason he is carried on fighting for his boss for the last five years instead of going home. Always telling himself he wasn’t ready, always fooling himself, putting it off for another day, another month. Another lifetime.
Kieran knew that if this woman hadn’t walked into his life, he would have carried on doing the same thing, fighting until it killed him.
But at least that would have been a death that he chose himself. Now it seemed as if his world was being pulled apart, his life pulled from under him, and he had no choice in his actions. He was caught up in something he didn’t understand, with emotions he didn’t think he was capable of experiencing rushing through his body when he touched her.
And worse, for the first time since Philippe had died, he felt scared. Not for himself, but for her.
“Damn it.” He cursed his luck.
“Please,” she said, her hand on his arm. “Tell me what’s wrong. You are a shifter, you have no contract, so why stay here and be treated like crap.” She moved her hand up to stroke his face, flinching as he felt the connection between them, like an electrical current, where her skin touched his.
He flicked his head back, breaking the contact. “I like it here, why would I cross the border? It’s full of even more freaks. This is all I’ve known. Over there, that is a world that does not exist to me.”
“Why?”
“Look, we don’t have time to stand here spilling our sorry stories out. You want to go to the border, I’ll take you. But then you walk across it and out of my life.” He was firm, his voice cutting in its harshness.
She shook her head, and laughed, but it contained no humour. “You’re scared.”
“I don’t care what you think.” But he did. The part of him, the beast that was like a shadow in his mind, was trying to tell him it mattered a great deal what she thought of him. What she thought of
them
.
“Of course you don’t.”
“Look, we need to move. I know these people. Whatever it is you know, they will stop at nothing until they get what they want.” He began to walk across the road, and for a moment he thought she wasn’t going to follow, but then she did, hobbling along painfully on her injured ankle.
“You’ll have to slow down a bit,” she said. “There’s no way I can keep up with you at that pace.”
He slowed, wanting to go back and help, wanting to pick her up, and carry her again. He’d enjoyed holding her against his chest, feeling her weight, her warmth, against him. Somehow he was beginning to feel like some romantic idiot, not the hard cage fighter that he had been only half an hour ago.
As they walked, he kept a lookout for anyone suspicious who may be following them, but there was nobody. But what he did know was that they could not walk to the border. She’d never make it with her injured ankle.
“Do you have any money?” he asked.
“What, you want me to pay you to take me to the border?” she asked.
He could tell by the look on her face that’s what she thought he meant, that she thought so little of him she expected him to want payment. “No, I’m just trying to figure out how we can get there,” he said. “There is no way you can walk there, and my wallet is back there with the rest of my life.”
She stopped walking, resting her weight on her good leg. “You are right, the only thing I can think of, is if I call my employer, the guy who owned my contract, and ask him for help.” She looked down at the ground, as if contemplating something. “Is that what you want? Me to call Darius?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, taking a step towards her, pulling himself up to his full height, making her cower in front of him. But then she took a deep breath and looked straight into his eyes, and he knew right then that she was the perfect match for him, full of courage, but he had to forget about that.
“What do I mean?” She placed her hands on her hips. “What I mean is I think this is all a setup. I don’t think you really rescued me. I think you just want to know what I know and you thought this whole charade would gain my trust and loosen my tongue.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He frowned, looking at her, trying to work out what exactly was she was accusing him of. “Right, I get it. You think this is a different way of trying to get the information out of you. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t know anything about you, I don’t want to know anything about you, I just want you out of my life.”
“Then just walk away. Go on. Just leave me. I can get along without you.” He stood looking at her, wishing he could just walk away, but the thing inside of him wouldn’t let him. That left him with one choice: get her to the border.
“We’ll steal a car.”
“We’ll what?” This was going from bad to worse, but unfortunately it hit her that he was right; with no money and with her injured ankle, they were stuck unless she phoned Darius. There was no other way for them to get to the border.
“A car—you know, one of those things you drive.”
“Can you drive?” she asked. “Because I thought freaks like you, freaks like me, aren’t allowed to drive. Aren’t allowed to get a licence, because we aren’t human.”
“I grew up where they didn’t care so much about those things. I used to drive the trucks on the farms, this shouldn’t be too different.” He was walking away from her now, looking at all the different cars parked along the street. He was looking for the right one to steal, and that left her with a tough decision. If they stole a car and got caught, she could kiss goodbye ever going back to the Prime.
No, that wasn’t right: if they stole a car and they got caught, wouldn’t the authorities just throw them back across the border? Like a sack of garbage. They didn’t like shifters over here, and if they didn’t owe money, they would just get rid of them. They certainly wouldn’t be put in prison, because that would be to class them on the same level as humans.
Still, it didn’t sit right with her; it wasn’t worth the risk. She had played it safe, did as she was told all the time she had been here, she wasn’t about to blow it now.
“Unless you have a better idea.” He stopped, looking closely at one old car, and he raised his fist about to break the window. “Then this is what we going to do.”
She put her hand on his arm and stopped him. Looking up, she tried to stare deep into his eyes even though he wanted to avoid her gaze. “Promise me.”
“I don’t make promises.”
“Just this once, for me.” She took a deep breath, knowing she was mad to say this, knowing that the chances were she was going to get herself and Darius into trouble. But something about him made her trust him. Her horse shifted in her mind, as if trying to agree through the fog in her mind. Fog induced by the collar around her neck, which made everything dull, and made her senses slow.
“What?” he said. “What exactly is it that you want me to promise?”
“That you aren’t trying to hurt me,” she said shaking her head again. “Promise me that if I call my employer and get him to come here, that this isn’t a trap.”
“And if he comes here, what then? I just walk away?” His eyes showed a battle raging within him. He was torn in two, part of him understanding their bond and part of him wanting to deny it.
“If that’s what you really want.”
“It is.” He looked at her and then looked around. “We have to get to a phone. You do know the number?”
She nodded. Darius should still be in his office; she would call him there. “But how do we make the call?”
“There.” They headed towards the bar, and he opened the door, and she followed him inside. It was crowded, filled with humans, but luckily most of them were so engaged in conversation that they didn’t look up, didn’t notice the two shifters with collars around their necks. He headed towards the bar, saying to her, “Just make sure they see how bad your ankle is. We need them to feel sorry for you, and then they should let us use the phone.”
He used his charisma and confidence as he leaned on the bar, placing his hand around his neck to cover his silver collar. It worked. The woman who came over smiled at him, obviously interested in him, but she only saw a handsome ripped man, not a freakish shifter.
“What can I get for you?” she asked, her voice sultry, her eyes dilated as she took in his toned muscled body and the smile that flitted across his face. He answered her question with his eyes, telling the woman, whose name badge read
Janice
, that he wanted her.
Misty sighed loudly, sounding bored, but really she was jealous.
“Can I borrow your phone? he asked, as he leaned further in towards Janice.
“It’s not for patrons,” she said, smiling seductively and licking her lips.
“My name is Kieran and I thought you might help me out. I would be
very
grateful.” He leaned closer, his mouth so close to Janice’s, Misty thought they were going to kiss right there in the crowded bar.
“Would you?” Janice opened her shirt a little more, her breasts soft and plump, her nipples hard buds, showing through the thin fabric. “How grateful?”
Misty moved to the right, wanting to make sure Janice knew he was with her. It worked, the woman’s eyes flicked onto Misty, and she stood up, the spell between them broken. “Oh, I didn’t know you were with someone. I don’t go in for all the yucky threesome stuff.”