A. Arthur - Part of Me

Next he’d get up and he’d pace, then he’d rake his fingers through his raven-black hair and try to take as many deep breaths as it took to calm the hell down. Somehow I sensed that the calm and authoritative Brayden that normally prevailed wasn’t in charge here. The animal in him was struggling to break free as evidenced by the ticking of that muscle in his jaw. The light goatee he’d started growing couldn’t hide that movement, not from me since I knew what to look for where Brayden was concerned.

Plus, I knew personally about the animal trying to emerge because I was feeling the same way, only I hated it. I didn’t want to be this way with Brayden, didn’t want to feel like he could be that one for me, that other half that would complete the me that was created in that damned forest. I simply couldn’t go there, not physically and definitely not mentally. The thought alone was too difficult to comprehend, fear struggling to dominate me. The bottom line was that if I gave in to being with Brayden, I would be accepting the shadow shifter in me. I would be accepting that I was half human, half jaguar with the same genetic make-up as the man who had destroyed my life, betrayed his tribe, and killed humans and shifters alike just for the hell of it.

For me, for everyone involved, that simply was not an option.

Brayden was right about one thing, I’d known this was coming. I’d seen it in his eyes, felt it in the way he talked to me, or stared at me for too long, or touched me when it was really unnecessary. I could just tell we were headed in that direction.

And I’d been too stupid to stop it.

I’d been as reckless and unpredictable as the Elders had said I would become. I was falling into my uncle’s footsteps, becoming the rogue shifter because I didn’t step into line with what I was now presuming was Brayden’s plan for us.

But I wasn’t my uncle. I wasn’t a rogue shifter and I wasn’t going to get sucked up into the romantic and totally hot-as-hell world of Brayden Sanchez.

I just wasn’t.

“We’re not doing this,” I’d told him before standing up and packing up all my books.

His reaction was quick, his words almost desperate as he stood with me. “Don’t go. We can talk about this,” he insisted.

“No. We can’t,” I told him. “We will never talk about this again and it will never happen again. Do you hear me, Brayden? This,” I yelled while moving my arm back and forth motioning to him and me, because my nipples were so hard they ached, my mouth watering for another one of those steamy kisses. “This will never happen again!” I’d said it so empathically Brayden had actually winced.

He grabbed me then, his strong hands gripping my shoulders, pulling me closer to him as he stared down at me.

“Words won’t wish this away, Lidia. You’ve been trying that for way too long. This, as you call it, is inevitable.”

He hadn’t yelled, had actually spoken through clenched teeth, but the intensity of the words was just the same. They vibrated in the air, filling me with such trepidation I wasn’t sure if running was actually an option or not.

I shook my head, answering him and yet not really doing so. “No,” I told him, determined to stick by my decision. “No, this will not happen. I can stop it. I will stop it!” I insisted, pulling out of his grasp and turning away from him.

“Lidia.”

He said my name so simply, so familiarly, I couldn’t help but stop and for endless seconds, consider, wonder.

Then I was moving, grabbing my purse and books and heading for the door.

“Don’t do this, Lidia. You’ll regret it,” he warned.

I was already regretting so much. It was time to make things right, to do the right thing and walk away. It was the only choice I had, the only way to keep us all—especially Brayden—safe.

“I won’t let you do this.” He finished that sentence with a growl, low and deep in his chest.

The sound echoed through the otherwise quiet room and something inside me stirred. It awakened and stretched, began a little purr of its own. I yanked that doorknob so hard and so fast I probably could have torn it straight off. Then I was gone, getting the hell out of his apartment faster than I’d ever moved before. The next day I took my finals and boarded the first plane I could to the summer educational conference I’d already registered for in Los Angeles. And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I didn’t talk to Brayden. Not that day or the days immediately following.

His hadn’t been the first voice I heard when I woke up, either on cell phone or at the door of my apartment yelling about needing breakfast. I hadn’t seen him a thousand times throughout the day or had at least two of my three daily meals with him. And at night when I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, too afraid of the nightmares to fall asleep, Brayden hadn’t called my cell phone or even sent me a text to calm my nerves, to whisper that I’d be okay, that nothing done in dreams could ever hurt me. His warning that I’d regret leaving had echoed in my head every day, several times a day. And in the end, my friend, my confidant hadn’t been there to comfort me, to forgive me, to simply be. That’s what I’d missed most of all.

Fall semester

Senior year

Brayden said he’d be here even though he hadn’t registered for any classes this semester. He’d even rented a new apartment without the benefit of a roommate to help him pay for it, which perplexed me but I’d vowed to wait until I’d seen him before I started interrogating him. As for me, my schedule was full, with eighteen credits and a part-time job at the bookstore to help with the costs my meager scholarships didn’t meet.

I’d walked back and forth through the main hall of the café where students, some anxious and some not so much, milled around getting dinner and catching up with other students they hadn’t seen over the summer. My two new roommates were somewhere around here collectively ignoring me as I told them there was somebody I needed to find ASAP. I guess they’d assumed it was a guy, as in a guy that I was involved with, but it was just Brayden. Just my best friend.

Who was MIA once again. Slipping my cell from the front pocket of my jeans I was just about to dial his number for the billionth time when a high-pitched giggle caught my attention. I turned to look over at a table about twenty feet away, near the double doors that led to the outside eating area. For whatever reason my senses had been on overdrive today so I felt a little edgy and kind of overstimulated, that’s probably why I could hear this laughter clear across the room and above all the other chatter going on around me. But I couldn’t think any more about that because the person who was doing the laughing was doing it again. And if the shrill, annoying-as-hell sound didn’t make me want to scream, the fact that she was sitting her pert little ass in Brayden’s lap did!

I was not jealous. This is what I repeated to myself the entire time walking over to approach them. I was not jealous that Brayden had a girlfriend, or a friend, or a slut, take your pick. He was certainly free to date whomever he pleased, as was I. But when we’d spent the last three months apart, each of those nights of which I suffered through completely alone, and I’d been texting him like crazy this past week to find out when I would actually see him again, no, he needed to be running to see me, not hugged up with this, this … person!

“Hey,” I managed when I was finally in front of Brayden and the untitled female. “What’s up?”

He’d been sitting with his back pressed against the wall behind him, his legs spread, arms full of the prettily smiling brunette. His head had been down low, like he’d either been listening intently to something the brunette was saying—most likely not—or staring down at all the cleavage she had so boldly on display—more likely. At the sound of my voice or maybe it was the incessantly loud beating of my heart, Brayden lifted his head slowly, those dark, mesmerizing eyes taking me in with a careful gaze.