Broken: Hidden Book Two (10 page)

“Time to go home, Mistress,” she said. “Can’t run forever.”

I sighed. “All right. Let’s go home, then.” And the imps and I piled into my car, and we made our way home again.

Chapter Eight

It was nearly four a.m. when I made my way home. I was a mess. Gore and other grossness on my jeans, who knows what on my top. Blood that was not mine crusting on my arms and face. I took the elevator up, crept into the loft.

The living room lamps were on, and Brennan was sitting in one of the recliners, wearing dark pants, a gray shirt, and a tie. Head back, sleeping. I watched him for a minute, knowing how dumb it was to watch someone sleeping, yet, stupidly, unable to look away. I shook my head and headed toward my room.

“Hey,” he said, and I jumped about a foot.

I tried to still my pounding heart. “Shit. I thought you were asleep.”

“I was. Sorry I startled you,” he said. I waved it off. “I was waiting for you.”

“Why?”

He stood up and walked toward me. “Because you left the house pissed off at me, and I hate it when that happens.”

I shrugged. “How was dinner?” I asked, not really wanting to know.

He shrugged. “Fine. The pack is nice. Mr. Ryan was happy I was there, and he sends his regards. He sees me as a good connection to have, a tie between their pack and our team.”

“Right. Especially if you start dating his daughter,” I said, trying to keep any emotion out of the words.

He raised his eyebrow. “Yeah. I guess. Except that I don’t want to date his daughter.”

“She wants you,” I said. “ A lot. And she’s gorgeous, and powerful. Well-connected.” I looked away.

“Okay. Whatever. But I don’t want her.” He paused. Confusion, anxiety, irritation. “Wait. You don’t expect me to date her to make the pack happy, do you? Or are you trying to push me off on somebody else?”

I looked up at him, dumbfounded. “Hell, no. I don’t want you dating…” I clamped my mouth shut before I could do anymore damage. Stupid.

“Did you think I was interested?”

I didn’t answer and he watched me. Irritated, again.

“Is that why you were pissed?”

I just looked at him.

He let out a small growl of irritation. “You can sense emotions, Molly. You never, ever read mine wrong. You know me inside and out.”

“I thought I knew Nain, too. Look how that worked out.”

He was silent for a minute, eyes searching mine. “I am not Nain. Did you get any sense, at all, that I was interested in her?”

I looked away. Wished for a hole I could fall into. He came up to me and took my chin in his hand, gently, and made me look at him. “You thought I wanted her?” His voice was a low growl, and it made my stomach flutter, my spine tingle. His eyes bored into mine, and love, longing, rolled off of him like a wave.

“She’s perfect for you,” I finally managed.

“Uh, no. She’s really not.”

“Yes, she is.”

He watched me for a few seconds, took a breath. Nervousness. “We were going to have a long talk after the explosion. Remember?”

I just looked at him. He still held my chin in his fingers, and his eyes mesmerized me.

“You wanted to know how I knew it hurt when you healed. Eunomia asked how I knew you were waking up. I know other things too, Molly. I know when you’re hungry. I know when you’re in pain, and I know when you’re tired. Not emotions, not like you. I feel, physically, what you’re feeling. Do you know how?”

I forgot how to breathe. I just stared at him.

“It’s because I love you,” he said, slowly, deliberately, watching me, still holding my chin gently in his fingers. “I gave myself to you a long time ago. Because, no matter whether you can love me back or not, you’re mine in a way no one else ever has been or ever will be. Your essence,
you
, are so much a part of me that when you’re in pain, it hurts me. When you’re hungry, I want to feed you. When you’re cold, I want to make you warm again. ”

I finally came to my senses, pushed his hand away. “What? For how long?” I hated the way my voice trembled, the way my stomach flip-flopped.

“Since the first time I laid eyes on you.”

“In the loft, when Nain introduced me to everyone?” I asked, dread settling into my stomach.

He shook his head. “Before that. Remember, Nain was following you around the city for a long time before he finally talked to you, trying to figure you out? I was with him a lot of the time. The first time I saw you, you were beating the hell out of two guys who were about four times your size. It hit me like goddamned lightning, the second I laid eyes on you. I bonded to you, immediately, as my mate. There is no one else for me. Ever.”

I was trembling now. “All that time…with Nain…”

He reddened, gave a terse nod.

I charged at him, tried to hit him, and he caught my hand easily, and held my wrist in his hand. “How could you not tell me?” I tried to hit him with the other hand, and he grabbed it as well, held it in an iron grip.

“What difference would it have made?” he said back, still holding my wrists against his chest. “At first, I thought you and I had a chance. Remember that? I wanted to tell you then. Then things changed, and suddenly you were with Nain. I couldn’t make myself say it, not when you were in a relationship with my best friend.”

“With the Puppeteer…”

He nodded. “I felt how much pain you were in, even as I caused it and couldn’t fight against her to stop it.”

“I…” I shook my head.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you before. Or I should have just kept my mouth shut. I don’t even know what the right thing is anymore.” His grip on my wrists was starting to hurt. The second I felt it, so did he. He let go of my wrists and stepped back, raking his fingers through his hair.

I stared at him, a thousand little moments, memories hitting me all at once. Realization that, despite what I wanted to believe, he wasn’t messing with me about this. “You lied to me,” I said. It was the first thing I could think of, the thing that hurt the most. He knew how much Nain’s lies had hurt me, and here he was, telling me he’d done the same thing.

He nodded.

“You’re not going to make excuses for it?” I could feel my power rising as my temper flared, and the building gave a shudder around us as it did. “Aren’t you going to tell me it was for my own good, or because you loved me so much it totally made lying to me okay?” I asked, and I could hear the venom in my voice.

“No. I was an idiot.”

“Is there anything else I should know?”

He shook his head. “It’s all there. I love you. You’re mine. I can feel you. And me telling you this is just going to make things more screwed up between us, and I know it. I’m not going to lie to you anymore.”

I shook my head, tried to remember to breathe. “I can’t believe this.” On one hand, part of me could admit that this was everything I wanted to hear from him. He loved me. He wanted me. On the other, I'd been jerked around, lied to, left behind. And this man standing there before me, pleading with his eyes, was supposed to be my best friend, the one I could trust completely. And he'd lied to me. Not just a fib, not an “oh, yeah, you look great in that dress” type of lie. This wasn't a crush he had. This wasn't just attraction. He'd imprinted on me as his mate. That is a huge freaking deal for a shifter. They mate for life, and do so only once they've found their true mate. My best friend, and he'd chosen not to share something that huge with me. Especially since it kind of involved me.

He watched me. “It bothered you that I was going to this thing with her tonight. Why didn’t you just tell me not to go?”

“Because I don’t own you. I have no right to tell you where to go or who to go out with or who to talk to or anything else.” I closed my eyes, shook my head. Why did everything always have to be so goddamn hard? Even my best friend couldn’t be straight with me. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut and the heart at the same time, and it confused me as much as it enraged me.

“Except that you do own me. Completely,” he said. “Remember that next time you think it’s even possible for me to want someone else.” He watched me, started loosening his tie. “And then maybe think about why it is that the idea of me wanting someone other than you bothers you so much.” He met my eyes one more time, then headed upstairs, leaving me to try to figure out how to deal with the turmoil of my warring emotions.

♦ ♦ ♦

After my little conversation with Brennan, I’d been doing my best to avoid him. I wasn’t mad that he could feel me. Shit like that, I knew from my own powers, was beyond our control. The fact that he hadn’t told me was what pissed me off. The fact that, for basically our entire friendship, there had been this lie between us.

I hurt for him, too. If my own little jealous (yeah, I could admit it) freak-out over the shifter was any indication, I could only imagine what he’d gone through all that time. Knowing that he loved me, and that he’d not only stood by and watched me choose someone else, but that he’d had to endure feeling my pleasure when some other man loved me…it was just too much.

And I was confused over just about everything with him. I don’t handle this type of thing well.

So I avoided him, and he let me do it. We said as few words as possible to each other throughout the days that followed. It was starting to put me in a bad mood, frankly.

We did our best to keep things running smoothly, but after a little over a week of avoiding each other, things were starting to fall apart, just a little bit, fraying at the edges. We’d been bickering with each other all day over stupid things. Shanti was sitting in the dining room working on the algebra problems I’d assigned her. Brennan was cleaning up after dinner and I was sitting at the counter in the kitchen reading through the reports Chief Jones had sent over for me.

“What’s going on tonight?” he asked me.

I shrugged. “Normal crap.”

“Want me to come with you?”

“I can handle it.”

He took a breath. “I know you can. Never said you couldn’t.”

“Then stop trying to help me.”

Shanti groaned. “Oh, shit. Here we go again,” she said, gathering up her books. “Y’all can do this by yourselves. It’s all reruns with you two lately.” And with that, she headed up to her room and shut the door.

“Watch the language,” I called after her.

Brennan shook his head and went back to washing dishes, irritated. “I know you don’t need me
or
my help. I just thought we’d get out of here and do something else for a while.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m tired of the pissiness lately. Maybe if we beat someone up together you’ll get over it,” he said, giving me a look and turning away.

“Aw, I’m not fun anymore, huh? Maybe you can find company elsewhere. Lemme think,” I said.

“Don’t even, Molly,” he warned.

“Or what?” I asked.

He turned around, crossed his arms. “What, do you want me to threaten you? Should I rough you up the way Nain used to when you disagreed with him? Maybe you’d want me if I acted like an asshole all the time.” I stared at him, and my jaw dropped. He took a deep breath, and I felt him trying to draw back his anger. “Shit. I’m sorry. That was stupid.” Silence as we both tried to handle our own anger. ”I shouldn’t have told you,” he said, turning away again.

“Yeah. You totally should have just kept lying to me.”

“Apparently.”

“It doesn’t change anything.”

“Yeah. Because you clearly couldn’t stand me before,” he said, and the growl in his voice was unmistakable.

“What, did you expect me to be charmed? Was I supposed to be all ‘oh, Bren! I’m yours! Let’s live happily ever after, baby!’ Please.” I got up and tossed the police reports in the garbage.

“No. I know you too well for that.”

“You don’t know me. One person in this whole world knew me, and he’s dead,” I said.

He went absolutely still. Glared at me. “If you really believe that, then you haven’t been paying attention. At all.” His anger, pain, love, need roared over me. He was overwhelming, in every way, and being around him was driving me completely insane, ready to snap at any second.

We glared at each other for several long seconds, and I felt like I was either going to cry or scream. So I did what I always seemed to do with Brennan lately.

“I do not need this,” I muttered. Then I walked out, slamming the door behind me.

I took it out on big bads, of course. I was just finishing fighting a sprite who’d tried stalking a girl as she walked home from work. As I sent his ass home afraid of me, I felt Eunomia flutter down behind me. I turned to look at her.

“You really need a new hobby,” she said, shaking her head.

“Yeah, I’ll take up crochet sometime,” I muttered.

She laughed. “You’re in a mood. Even more than usual,” she said, landing and sitting on the ground nearby. I plopped down next to her. The imps moved away from us, seeming to know when I wanted privacy. They went to the street and perched on the hood of my car, keeping an eye out for trouble while I talked to Eunomia.

I shook my head. “I got into another fight with Brennan and said something stupid,” I said, plucking a clover blossom from the patch of lawn we were sitting on.