When Riley finally looked up, he was surprised to see tears shining in her eyes. They ran down her cheek to disappear into her hair. He panicked. "Did I hurt you?" He would never forgive himself if he'd hurt her.
"No." She sighed and tightened her grip on his body. Sending new waves of pleasure through them both. She smiled and reached up to brush the tears away.
"Then what is it?" He rose up on his left elbow to look down at her. He'd never seen anything more beautiful. Her hair was damp still. Whether from her bath or their lovemaking, it didn't matter. And her skin glowed. He smiled and traced the small "love bite" on her neck where he'd marked her. She was finally his. After all these years. He dared the council or his brother to try and take her away from him now.
"I'm happy." She said it so simply. A flat truth that warmed his heart. He felt tears shining in his eyes at the thought that he could make her that happy. It gave him hope for the future.
But then he remembered that they wouldn't have a future if he didn't figure out how to get his brother to leave them alone.
Sam saw the shadows pass across Riley's eyes. What was he so afraid of? His family? It couldn't be that bad, could it? She reached up and twisted her finger in his hair. "What is it, love?" Had she missed something?
Riley sat up and ran his finger through his hair. This was the part he'd been dreading. He hadn't come here tonight with any other intentions than protecting her from Thane's hired lackey. But he hadn't counted on the intense feelings she always brought in him. Or that the cat would react so strongly to her. It shouldn't have. She was human. It shouldn't have cared about her at all. But its reaction to her scent had been unmistakable. He'd have to figure out what that meant later. Right now she was waiting for an explanation.
"I have to go back." He didn't turn to look at her as she sat up and tucked the robe around her. "Thane will be expecting me and if I don't show, things could get ugly. For both of us." He wasn't looking forward to it. He hated being there under his brother's thumb. But as the second son, and a half breed too, he had no choice. It was submit to Thane's rule, or die. And the second choice was not an option. He had her to protect, but his little brother would never survive without him. If it wasn't for Riley constantly keeping the stronger clan members from killing him, Caleb would have been torn apart as a weakling and a half breed too. There was no mercy in the clan.
Samantha pulled a face at the mention of Riley's older brother. She'd never liked him. He was a slimy, arrogant jerk. All that ever mattered to him was tormenting his younger brothers as much as possible. She remembered poor Caleb as a sweet kid with a quick mind. She hoped that too many years on the receiving end of Thane's abuse hadn't hurt him too much. Or worse, turned him just as mean.
She took a deep breath and reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. "All right Riley. You obviously have something you don't want to tell me. I promise I'll try to be a big girl and take it like a man. " She tried to smile but her insides were turning to mush. And not in a good way like earlier.
Riley shifted on the bed so he could face her. The uncertainty in her eyes broke his heart. But it was now or never. Either he told her the truth and hoped for the best. Or he walked out that door and never looked back. He couldn't even hope to protect her from Thane, or his mother, if she didn't know and understand everything.
"Just promise me that you will hear me out before you call the nice guys in the white coats to come and get me." He tried to smile. But it didn't quite reach his eyes.
Now she really was worried. What on earth could he possibly have to tell her that had him thinking she'd call the cops, or worse on him? "I promise not to call anybody until you're finished."
Riley sighed and got up. He turned to face her. "The easiest way to tell you is to show you." And without another word, the air around him shimmered, like sound waves you could see, and he was gone. In his place was the biggest black jaguar Sam had ever seen.
Her heart sped up to a rollercoaster pace and she scooted backward across the bed instinctively. Landing on her feet on the far side. She stared in disbelief at the big cat as it sat down and stared back. Its eyes were brown. Not yellow like all the other cats she'd ever seen. You could barely see his black-on-black patterned fur in the growing dawn light. She was just beginning to catch her breath as the air shimmered again and Riley was standing where the cat had been. Still in all his glory. Sam felt the room spin and sat back down on the bed.
Riley sat down across from her and took a deep breath. He didn't know what her reaction would be. His heart beat an unsteady rhythm as he waited. He didn't have to wait long.
She started laughing. Laughing? Really? Not exactly the reaction he'd expected. He stared at her open-mouthed. Which only made her laugh harder.
"Oh, baby." She tried to talk but she was laughing so hard she couldn't catch her breath. That's what he'd been so afraid to tell her? Little did he know that she already knew about it. His cousin had been her best friend. Her father had been an alcoholic who liked to talk while he was drunk. She heard him tell stories about Riley's mother and her family for years growing up. She always chalked it up to the imagination of a drunk old man. Until she'd grown up and started studying the occult. That's when she'd found out that his stories were more fact than fiction.
The longer she laughed, the more pissed off Riley got. What the hell was so damn funny? He was about to grab her and shake her when she reached out and pulled him across the bed. They tumbled together and she landed on top of him. Straddling him like she'd done earlier.
"I already knew." She saw his eyes go wide and then he growled and flipped them again. Now he held her hands above her head and glared down at her.
"You knew? How?" He was completely non-pulsed. She knew? All this time he'd thought he had to hide it. Stay away from her so she'd never know and hate him. Or worse, fear him. He glared at her and tightened his grip on her wrists.
"Ouch!" She protested. "Riley, that hurts." She struggled to get loose but his grip was like iron. "I knew because your uncle had a big mouth. Especially when he was drinking. Which was all the time. You forget I spent most of my teens swapping weekends between my house and your aunt and uncle's." Sam tried again in vain to pull her hands free. Riley was scaring her. She thought he'd be happy that he didn't have to hide his true nature from her. Instead, he was furious with her. It didn't make any sense.
Riley allowed her to continue struggling while he processed the fact that there was a very real possibility that they'd wasted the last 10 years for nothing. The thought did not make him happy. Or his cat either. He felt the growl low and hard in the depths of his soul. He released her arms and pushed off of the bed. Turning his back on her until he could control the cat again.
Sam sat up and rubbed her wrists. The new bruises added insult to injury with her skin still raw from Sheba's scratches. She'd completely forgotten about the furry lump in the cage in the corner. She looked into the cage and saw Sheba pressed as far back into the corner as she could get. Her ears laid back and her eyes glowed green as they never left Riley's face. She hissed, and to Sam's complete chagrin, Riley hissed back. The cat whined and tried to make herself even smaller. She knew the scent of a bigger predator when she smelled it and she wanted no part of Riley's cat.
Sam closed her eyes for a minute and reached out for him with her other senses. It was a trick she'd learned while studying. It helped all of her other senses to open up if her eyes didn't get in the way. Logic was like that. Your brain listens to sight and sound before anything else because people are trained to live only in the physical world. But she knew that there was another world. Just below the surface. In that world, Riley's cat stalked the darker places of his soul. Pacing as though caged. Without thinking she reached out to comfort it.
Riley whirled on her as he felt her energy completely bypass him and collide with his cat. His eyes widened as he looked at her. Her colors swirled in an almost visible storm around her, blue and green and silver sparks. What the hell was she doing?! She shouldn't have been able to get passed his defenses. Let alone be able to "talk" to the Jaguar.
He wanted to shake her but he didn't dare touch her. There was so much raw power flowing off of her in waves. If he even came near her, there was no telling what might happen. Instead, he stood there and watched her. Opening his defenses more to see what she would do.
Sam was aware of Riley's slight pushing against her to test her defenses. But she'd worked long and hard on them and he was nothing more than an annoyance. She ignored him and turned back to the big cat. She wanted more than anything to communicate with it. She'd always had an affinity for Jaguars and Panthers. Out of all the big cats. She'd never stopped to wonder why. She'd just assumed it was like her "totem" animal and left it at that.
But maybe it was because she knew this cat. And she'd been looking for him all this time. To her surprise and delight, she felt the big cat stretch and purr as their energies collided. She gave the cat a mental "hug" and was rewarded with a groan from Riley.
Riley wasn't sure what she'd just done, but whatever it was he felt a wave of heat all the way into the deepest part of his soul and his body tightened painfully. It didn't matter that they'd only just left that bed she was sitting on. He wanted her right then more than he ever had in his life. He clenched his fist and took a step toward her. To his utter shock, his cat growled a warning at him and turned back to where her energy swirled in a glittering arch between them. He stood there in shock. Not knowing what to do.
She chose that moment to turn to him and astrally push against his own defenses, just as he had her's minutes before. He reflexively threw up his shields. But she brushed them aside like they were nothing. He was suddenly sucked into that storm of colors that surrounded her and he felt his defenses shatter as she dropped her own shields and bared her soul to him.
It was all there. The hurt and confusion when he'd left. The endless tears and silent screams as she lay awake at night wondering what she'd done so wrong. The total emptiness of watching all of her friends date and fall in love, while she sat in the corner not able to join them because the thought of being with any of the guys that approached her made her violently ill.
Working nights for the last five years at that damn record shop just so she wouldn't have to spend the dark nights alone anymore. What had he done to her? He cursed his family and the cat and everything that had come between them. He never meant to cause her that much pain. It hadn't been his fault dammit!
Sam felt the sharp sting of Riley's guilt and anger cut through her own pain like a red hot spear. She'd never meant for him to see any of that. He wasn't supposed to know about all those feelings she'd kept locked away for years now. Not feeling anything for fear of shattering into a million tiny pieces. Just like her balcony door. She tried to pull back, to retreat back into her own head, but the three of them were caught. The circuit was closed and she didn't know how to open it. She'd never felt so connected to anyone as she did to both sides of Riley. Because that's how she saw the cat.
Riley could fight all he wanted to pretend that he and the cat were separate. But she knew better. She saw with her inner eyes. She saw the cords of pure energy swirling through Riley's colors that bound them together. The cat was just as much a part of him as his arm or his heart. And she saw something else too. A shining silver cord that connected her to Riley. It was so bright. Shimmering between them like spun silver. She could see every thread that wound the cord, like a rope between their hearts.
She'd read about them while searching all the occult books she could find for a way to forget him. But she'd never actually "seen" one before. She reached out her "hand" and touched the glittering strands. It made a sound like ringing bells. High and pure. The sweetest sound she'd ever "heard". She felt it like a summer rain. It washed over her and calmed the sparks of power that eddied around them both.
She found that she could open her eyes now, which she did. Riley was standing no more than two paces away from her. With a completely dumbfounded expression. Like she'd suddenly grown a second head.
She smiled and waited for him to catch up. She was used to people looking at her like that. She didn't know how she was able to do the things she did, but she had learned how to control and use it well over the years.
“What the hell was that?” Riley wasted no time in giving her the third degree. “How did you do that? You shouldn’t be able to do that. And how in the nine billion names of God can you talk to the cat when I can’t even do it. No matter how hard I try.” Riley had no intention of telling her that the reason he was so angry was because in all his training he’d never found any way to communicate with that part of him. He could change at will now, but he knew others in the clan could actually remember what happened and could control their cat. He would never tell them that he couldn’t. When the cat took over he had no memory of it. It was his shame to bear and he bore it in silence. He shuddered to think how his brother would use it against them all if he ever knew.
Sam could see and feel some kind of battle going on just below the surface of Riley’s consciousness. It swirled just below his awareness and caused black wisps to fade in and out in the colors between him and the big cat. The connection between them wasn’t complete. It caused them both so much pain. But somehow she knew that if she tried to help or said anything about it it would only cause him more pain. So she let it go, for now.
“I spent the years after you left studying. Wicca, Buddhism, the Occult, anything that might help me find a way to erase you from my memory.” The confession brought her no joy. Nor did she expect it to. But he at least deserved the truth. “Meditation helped me to deal with the pain and Wicca helped me find a direction for all of the things about me that I never understood. It just kind of made sense.” She shrugged and shifted her weight on the bed. She didn’t tell him about all of the fights with her family over her choice of paths, or that she had learned a lot about his family. Or that there were other clans out there too. Other “Weres” and creatures that were not even remotely human. Most humans went on with their daily lives completely unaware of the world that lay just out of range. Like a flash out of the corner of your eye. Glimpsed but never quite seen. But she had seen and she knew it was real.
He sat down on the bed next to her and reached out to twist one golden lock around his finger. He really did love the way her hair curled around his hand. “I’m so sorry sweetheart. But I have to go.” He saw her heart sink and wanted so much to take her in his arms again. But he knew it was time. “I could promise you that I’ll be back tonight, but I can’t. I don’t know what’s waiting for me when I get home. But you can bet that Thane will have a welcoming committee waiting for me.” That was probably an understatement but there was no use worrying her any more than necessary.
“I know. But that doesn’t make it any easier to watch you go.” Oh would you listen to her! She sounded like all of those helpless women in the movies. Fawning all over the hero to save them. Those kinds of women had always disgusted her, and now here she was acting just like them. What the hell was happening to her?
While Sam was lost in her thoughts, Riley picked up his clothes and tried to figure out what exactly he was going to tell his brother. He had no doubts that Thane had sent Ellington to “take care of” Sam. The question was, how long it would take for Thane to figure out Ellington wasn’t coming back. The guy had never been known as reliable. He would leave the clan compound for days, even weeks, at a time. Usually drinking and chasing whatever he could find in a skirt that would give him the time of day. But if Thane had sent him on a direct order, and Riley was pretty sure he had done just that, then he might have twenty-four hours to get Sam and Caleb out of town. That was assuming that either one of them wasn’t going to be stubborn as hell.
Riley pulled his boots on and turned back to see Sam nearly dressed as well. What the hell did she think she was doing?
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