Part of Me (12 page)

“It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t need it. I should be able to get through it on my own. I know he can’t touch me if I don’t allow him to.”

“Nobody can touch you,” he said. “You’re a fighter, Lidia.”

“I’m an outcast,” I admitted. The words were exactly what I’d felt all my life. I wasn’t on either side, never had been really, and now everyone would know.

“No,” Brayden insisted, reaching down to grab my chin. He pushed until I was sitting up, looking at him through eyes that were becoming blurry. Dammit!

I did not cry about this, not about my situation or the things I could not change. It was a pointless and weak emotion that I’d never wanted to have. Ever.

“You are not an outsider. You are one of us and a very valuable part of our team.”

He was talking about Team Sanchez, which consisted of his brothers and me as the lone female shifter. We’d given ourselves this name when we were in Africa and had faced a group of
Croesteriia
shifters. There were a dozen of them, coming at us from all angles as we hadn’t really been paying much attention, just exploring the jungle there. It had been a miraculous victory, one that I still wondered about. But Brayden had said they’d faltered because no one could defeat Team Sanchez. He’d
included me then just as he was including me now. I just didn’t believe it.

“I’m not a part of your family,” I said slowly. “I’m the kid your parents felt sorry for and took along with them so the tribe wouldn’t totally cast me out.”

Brayden frowned. His dark hair was rumpled, his cheeks lightly dusted with the morning’s growth.

“My mom would shake you if she heard you say that,” he told me.

I almost smiled. Marta Sanchez was a force to be reckoned with, there was no doubt. Even with her short stature—five feet even—she packed a powerful punch in human form and when completed shifted she was as vicious and deadly as any of the rest of them.

“But she’d know I was speaking the truth. They didn’t even want you to come with me out here, Brayden. They knew all along I was a crapshoot. Now that I’m an adult I can be responsible for myself so they willingly let me go.”

“That’s not true,” he argued.

“It is true, Brayden, and you know it.” I sighed, touching a hand to his wrist. “You can’t protect me from everything and everyone. I know how people feel about me. I’m not stupid.”

“You are stupid,” Brayden replied in a tone I didn’t appreciate. “You’re stupid if you believe for one moment that I
was going to let my parents tell me not to come with you or that I would ever walk away from you because of the mistakes made by your family. I’m never going to walk away from you, Lidia. I’m never going to leave you, so you might as well get used to that fact.”

I tried to turn my head away because his words were so intense, so honest they made my chest hurt. Those tears that had been shimmering at the brim of my eyes were going to fall. I could tell because my vision became blurry, my bottom lip shaking like I was a damned ninny.

Brayden cupped my face then, holding me still because he no doubt knew what I’d planned to do.

“I told you before, Lidia, you are a part of me. An integral part that if torn away would leave me for dead. You are my soul, my heart, my air.”

My mouth opened as I gasped, tears spilling from my eyes onto his hands. He lowered his forehead to mine and I blinked, trying desperately to clear the lump stuck in my throat that prevented me from speaking.

“You are a part of me,” he whispered once more. “Do you understand?”

I nodded because there was nothing else I could do. I knew exactly what he was saying and believed it because it was the
same way I felt about him, the same fierce connection that I’d known would never be severed.

“You are a part of me,” I finally managed before his lips touched mine.

I wouldn’t leave her.

They weren’t just words I’d whispered to calm her in the aftermath of the worst nightmares I’d ever seen her have. It wasn’t a lie. I would walk away from the life I’d always wanted for her, because without Lidia I didn’t want to live.

I didn’t want to breathe or to even wonder what the next day would bring. I’d heard that finding a
companheiro
was an amazing and life-changing feat for a shifter, but I had no idea it would be this way. Maybe because I figured I’d always known that Lidia was my
companheiro.
It had been so easy with her, ever since the beginning, so natural. Our lives would be simple, fully entrenched in the Assembly and our future would be secure as shifters. I’d never thought about our future as a couple.

“Looks like you’re pretty deep in thought there.
”

The male voice coming from a room I thought I was in alone was more than a little unnerving. But I didn’t jump, barely even flinched as I looked right up into the stony eyes of Jace Maybon, Pacific Faction Leader and owner of this house—who was supposed to be out of the country.

I stood immediately, tucking my shoulders back and keeping eye contact with the leader. The fact that I was definitely trespassing in his house was a problem and reason enough for him to kill me where I stood. But I’d at least face him with the pride and strength of a soldier and a man.

“I’m Brayden Sanchez, Leader Maybon. My brothers and I are in the upcoming class of finalists,” I said, extending my hand to him.

I’d been sitting in his living room, staring out the patio doors to the ocean that Lidia loved so much while she’d been in the shower. Giving her space had seemed like a good idea and now I was even more grateful that I had. Having Jace catch us coming out of the shower would have been more embarrassing than this already was.

Jace removed a hand from his pants pocket, gripping mine as he continued to stare solidly at me.

“Why are you here instead of on the East Coast training with Rome?”

“We had a problem and had to get away soon,” I began, then proceeded to run down the events that had taken place.

“Why didn’t you call me when it happened? Why didn’t you report the exposure immediately?”

Good questions, I thought, and probably the course of action I should have taken. But I hadn’t and the reason for that fear was burning a hole in the center of my chest right at this moment.

“She’s not a rogue,” I told Jace. “Lidia Morales is not like her uncle Sabar. What happened in Pacifica had nothing to do with rogues,” I said emphatically. It was what Lidia believed and what I had been too good of a brother to mention, and what I knew the Faction Leader was thinking as he continued to study me.

“She’s your
companheiro,
” he said slowly, matter-of-factly.

I nodded. “Yes, she is.”

“And you want to protect her. You want to keep her from being judged and convicted based solely on a set of circumstances she had no control over.”

He was absolutely right but something about his tone kept me quiet.

Jace moved to the bar on the other side of the room. I watched him retrieve a glass from a shelf on the wall behind him, then reach into the refrigerator to pull out a bottle of water. After opening it he poured it into a glass and took a
couple of swallows before flattening his palms on the bar’s surface and leveling me with another gaze.

I still stood at attention in the spot where he’d left me, still looked up to him as the leader he was, but for the life of me couldn’t figure out how this was going to play out.

“The first thing you should have learned about being a Stateside Shadow Shifter was that we have integrity. That in addition to being loyal to our race we’re also very aware that we live in a different time and place than the Elders who previously dictated our laws. We honor and protect our women, similar to the way you’re standing here ready to fight me, a Faction Leader, to the death if I even think about coming down on Lidia Morales. We do that with pride and with dignity, we do not hide and hope for the best. You should have contacted me immediately as this all went down in my zone, which means I have to answer to the other FLs and the Assembly for this situation.”

All I could do was nod at the validity of his words. I’d messed up. In all that I thought I was so ready to become a shifter guard, I’d probably just flunked one of the most basic of tests. But I wouldn’t apologize for what I’d done. In fact, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

I was the only one there watching as they attacked us and I’d dispatched the humans as best I could without too much bloodshed. Only I saw the fear on Lidia’s face when she looked
down at the one I’d killed and felt not one inch of remorse, or when Kyra jumped out the window and Lidia had wanted to breathe a sigh of relief but couldn’t because it might mean she was truly connected to Sabar Travers.

I hated that look on her face, hated how it made me feel and how the conflict in her still raged. So my gut instinct was to run and to think of the rest later. It was what I believed was the best plan, no matter what the FL thought.

“You’re right,” was what I managed to say as the only concession I planned to make in this regard. “And my plan was always to tell you and the Assembly what happened. Just not this soon.”

Jace was quiet as he took another sip of water. When the glass and the bottle were empty he leaned his head to one direction and then the next, soliciting a loud cracking of bones with the motion.

“You were also right,” Jace added finally. “Lidia Morales is not a rogue. However, the humans that broke into your apartment were sent there by one.”

I took a step toward him then.

“What are you talking about?”

“Sabar is actively recruiting. He’s hitting high schools and college campuses in an effort to get his recruits before
they’ve had a chance to take the finals and become full-fledged guards. He singled you out.”

“Why me?” I asked.

“Because of me,” Lidia answered from behind.

She had apparently finished with her shower, her hair in a damp ponytail, her white shorts barely passing her upper thighs, and her light blue T-shirt hugging the rounds of her breasts.

“He thought if he could recruit Brayden, I’d follow because Brayden and I are
companheiros.
”

It was the first time I’d heard her admit it, the first time she’d actually said the word that bonded us as surely as the feelings we’d both finally admitted to.

“Smart and pretty,” Jace said, coming from around the bar, passing me until he stood directly in front of Lidia. “You’re not what I imagined when I heard about you.”

“I’m not what everyone in the tribe would like to believe I am,” she said, her chin up, voice just a notch away from being fully offended.

She’d struggled with this all her life, tried her damnedest to be the female she wanted to be instead of the one they all thought she would eventually become. I watched her train while simultaneously embracing all that she could about the human world, taking the human tutoring much more seriously than Caleb or I ever had. In that way Lidia was a lot like Aidan, as they’d
both wanted desperately to get away from the shifter world as they became adults. Unlike Aidan, whose rebellion was rooted in his own conflicts, Lidia had carried on her shoulders the conflicts of an uncle she’d barely known.

“It has never been my intention to go against the Shadows. I only wanted to have some semblance of a normal life on my own. That’s why I pushed so hard to come here to go to school. It’s my fault that Brayden followed me and my fault that Sabar targeted him.” She paused, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. “So I’m willing to do whatever is necessary to stop Sabar from this reckless crusade, whatever it takes to get the ugly stain of his betrayal off my family’s name and memory forever.”

No. I wanted to yell the word but it didn’t come out. All I could do was stare at her, at the female that I thought I knew so well. A few minutes ago I’d been ready to walk away from the Assembly, from all that I’d thought I’d wanted out of life so that I could live the normal human life she wanted, so that I could live happily with her forever. Now, if I’d heard her correctly, she was standing here, committing to working alongside the Assembly in their fight against Sabar. I was speechless.

“You may have to face him,” Jace told her.

“No,” I immediately interrupted. “That bastard comes within a hundred miles of her and I’ll break his neck!”

“He comes near her we all take him out and the rogues cease to exist,” Jace said, noticeably calmer than I was. “But before that becomes an issue, we have to go back and deal with things in Pacifica.”

“No!” Lidia all but yelled. “They’ll arrest Brayden for killing that guy.”

Earlier this morning I’d seen Lidia cry for the first time, it had all but ripped my heart right out of my chest. Now, standing here just after hearing her accept what we are to each other, the scent of fear covering her like a blanket, my cat wanted to break free and kill again, to do anything to keep whatever was scaring her at bay.

“It’s okay,” I said, taking a step forward and touching a hand to her shoulder. It was instant heat, radiating up my arm and throughout my body.

The way she turned to stare at me confirmed she felt it too. Jace’s eye roll and audible sigh indicated that even he was aware of the strong connection between us.

“I don’t know how any of us are expected to survive around mated couples. You two reek of the
calor,
” he said with mild irritation.

When I opened my mouth to speak next, Jace held up a finger to stop me.

“When my assistant called to tell me you were here …” He paused, giving us a smirk. “She knew the moment you walked inside. FYI, there are cameras all over in here.”

Lidia immediately looked at me, her cheeks going red as I took a protective step closer to her. Not that I wasn’t embarrassed, especially if those cameras had caught everything that went on in that bedroom last night, but I wanted her to know that just as I’d told her before, I wouldn’t leave her.

“Infrared readings tipped her off that you were shifters, in the midst of the
companheiro
calor,
instead of just trespassing humans,” he said with an arching of his eyebrows that put me a little more at ease, but had Lidia looking away from Jace once more.