Shifter Magick (11 page)

Kera smiled. Could he be any more perfect?

There was a guitar sitting in the corner and Kera wondered if he
would play.

“Now that we’re here, what is your plan?” Maddox asked from behind her.

Kera realized the implications she was making by asking to come to his room.
She hadn’t thought about it until she heard the whispers of the other boy’s in the hall.
The physical attraction she had to him made her flush. Did he think that she wanted to be alone with him so they could further their relationship?
He said he hadn’t had sex because he hadn’t found the right person. Did he think she was the right person? She
also
hadn’t thought about all of the disasters that could occur if she did agree to sleep with him.

Would she hurt him?
That would be devastating.

Kera laughed without humor. “I didn’t want to deal with everyone watching us.” She said truthfully and hoped she was gracefully evading the sudden elephant in the room. “I also wanted to know what made you so popular that everyone wants a piece of you.”

“Oh.” Maddox smiled but he didn’t look disappointed.
“I’m pretty sure my family keeps up my persona so I can step back into the shoes they want me to fill when I come to my senses.” He crossed the room and pulled out a chair from his desk and offered it to her.

Kera wondered if he was avoiding sitting on the bed with her. “They want you to have a reputation?” she asked as she sat in the seat he offered her.

Maddox sat on the bed across from her. “You know my uncle owns the newspaper
but did you know my father is a scientist?”

Kera shook her head no. “What kind?”

“
He works with b
iology
and the human anatomy
.”

Kera swallowed. “He would be pretty interested in me then.” Kera watched Maddox’s expression and wished she could read his mind. She wanted to trust him but in this moment her fear started to get the best of her.

Maddox took one of her hands in his and squeezed it. “I would never betray you.” He told her. “
My father may be interested in someone like you but he will never know about you. Not from me.”

Kera focused on the feeling of his hand in hers. She felt like she could trust him and she decided that she would go with that right now. He told her he liked her way before he knew about her healing abilities. “So what does your father hav
e to do with your popularity?” S
he pressed on.

Maddox ran his thumb over the skin on her hand and she shivered. He smiled and continued. “I grew up close to my cousin’s Nick and Andrew.”

Kera gasped. “Andrew is your cousin too?”

Maddox nodded. “Nick and I were both from a very wealthy home but Andrew’s mom, my aunt, lived in the city. When she died
,
Andrew moved in with Nick and we banded together during the hard time. We started building this reputation together. We were untouchable. We could have anything we wanted with the right amount of money. I used my gift to get what I wanted and I did the same for Nick and Andrew.”

Kera started to catch on. His family wouldn’t let people forget him. He was needed for his gift. Was that why he would never betray her? Had he been betrayed? She squeezed his hand to urge him to continue.

“Things got out of hand my junior year.” He cleared his throat and got up from his seat on the bed. The springs creaked at the change in pressure and he let go of her hand.

Kera followed his movements with her eyes
,
but sat still
,
hoping he would continue.

Maddox ran a hand through his hair. “I realized by thinking we were better than everyone we were worse. I tried to convince them what we were doing was wrong but they wouldn’t listen. My uncle got involved and even my father backed him up. I moved out and cut myself off from them.”
He looked over and smiled a sad smile.

Kera felt like she understood.
“You’re popular because you are a mystery.”
She felt for him. She might have just received a small taste of what he dealt with everyday and she wanted to hide. She had even made it sound like his fault the first time they went out.
She even used the excuse five minutes ago.
It was a wonder he still talked to her with all of her screw ups.

Maddox nodded, letting her know she was on the right track.
“And because my name comes up every once and a while.”
He spun toward the corner and picked up the acoustic guitar. “Now it’s your turn.”

“Turn?” Kera feigned innocence.

Maddox laughed and she found the sound contagious. “Tell me why you’re here this year.” He sat back down in front of her and placed the guitar across his lap.

“I could finish my degree online in less time than it would take here.” She grumbled. “Sam intervened in his own way.”

The guitar had a great sound. Maddox strummed a cord in the silence she failed to fill when she didn’t continue. “Sam is?” He arched an eyebrow at her and strummed another cord.

Kera couldn’t help but smile. “My dad.” She explained. She was glad he was jealous, or at least pretending to be. “He started the application process and I just had to finish it. I tried to ignore him at
first but the flyers and brochures kept coming. Finally he just sent in my information himself and I started receiving calls from the registration office asking for me to send in my transcripts and an essay.”

This time in the silence, Maddox let it be for a moment. He set his guitar on the floor beside him and leaned forward with a strange glint in his eye. “Are you mad at him for it?”

Kera worried her lip for a moment then just blurted it out. “Yes.” She grabbed his guitar and pulled it across her lap like he had held it. “He could have just talked to me about it instead of doing it behind my back.” She picked random strings and strummed.

The cord came out all wrong. Kera winced and handed the guitar back to Maddox. He took it and watched her as she got up and started pacing like he had.

“Psychology wasn’t something I ever wanted to learn for a career.” She said, looking anywhere but at him. “I haven’t dealt with my tragedy.”

He strummed a cord to fill the silence then spoke softly. “Will you tell me your tragedy Kera?”

Kera shut her eyes and erected the filters in her head that kept out the images. She tried to keep out the guilt and the blame. She wondered over and over if it was her fault. Could she have stopped it somehow? Was her beast a curse for her hand in her mother’s death?

Maddox didn’t push her, he played. The strings of the guitar were crisp and new. She could tell just by the sound. Her music was her life. The instrumentals and orchestra’s were her medicine. She could have safe emotions with the music. As Maddox played, Kera felt her emotions ease from the turmoil that thinking about her mother usually created inside of her.

“My mother died in a car accident and I found her.” She spoke fast but it didn’t work like she expected it to. It was supposed to be like taking off a band aid. Instead, Kera felt her heart rip right
open. She gasped and a sob escaped on her next breath. “It was my fault. I snuck ou
t of the house and she went out
to find me.”

Maddox
laid the guitar across his bed and went to her. He
put an arm around her shoulder and rested his chin on her head.

Kera pressed her cheek against his neck. “
She acted like something bad was going to happen if I went to the lake with my friends.
I
t was my birthday and I
was more worried about what peopl
e would think if I wasn’t there
. I couldn’t think of anything that would happen. I could swim just fine. Turns out she died instead of me. I should have listened to her.”

“How long ago was this?” Maddox asked as he rubbed her arm to comfort her.

“Five years.” Kera answered him, and then smiled. “Usually the first thing someone says is that it wasn’t my fault.”

“I’m not agreeing with you but I know how things can feel like our fault when we look back and see all the things we could have done to change what happened. I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a time in my life I didn’t replay over and over and regret each thing I did and each I didn’t do to avoid disaster.”

“You’re going to be a great psychologist.”

Maddox chuckled and the sound vibrated in his chest. “I wasn’t going to be a psychologist either.”

Kera tilted her head to look at him. She met his ice blue eyes and narrowed her eyes at him. “Your turn again. Tell me what you are studying to be.”

Maddox smiled. “First I want you to tell me when your birthday is.”

“That’s not how this game works.” She whispered.

Maddox leaned down and
touched
his lips to her
s
.
“Sure it does.” He murmured. “I gave you two for one Monday.”

“Fine.” She kissed him back first. “It’s in two weeks from Friday.”

His arms tightened around her. “We’ll have to do something special then. I’ll bet you haven’t had a good birthday in five years.”

Kera smiled at him sadly. He was right.

“Are you going to answer this time when I call?” Maddox called through the open window on the passenger side of his car.
They had talked for hours before she told him she needed to get going. Even though her leg was healed, he still insisted on driving her home.

Kera arranged her crutches so she could
lean inside the window to get the setting sun out of her eyes. “Yeah
,
if I hear it this time.”

“This is the first time you didn’t demand to go home in the middle of our time together. I’m not letting you out of my sight unless I know for sure I can get a hold of you.”
Maddox held out his hand. “Let me see it.”

“If you start messing with the settings I will never figure it out.” She tried to warn him. Kera dug through her bag and pulled out the phone. She pouted when she realized it wasn’t on. No wonder she missed his call. “It must be out of batteries.”

Maddox wiggled his fingers and Kera laughed before she gave it to him. He pulled of the back of the phone gasped when dried flecks of blo
od came from inside
.

Kera froze. “I’m sorry.” She whispered.

“I should have checked.” Maddox said quickly. He pulled a phone out of his pocket and took off the back. He pulled out a small chip from the back of his phone and tossed it into the cup holder. Then he pulled out a chip from her phone and cleaned it off and put it in his phone.
“I’ll make sure my phone number is
programmed in.”

Kera wanted to argue
with the gift,
but by the time she realized what he was doing she was too late. He powered on the phone and did a couple of things before he handed it back. Kera wasn’t very good with technology. She looked at the
screen
and smiled.

“Kera C.U L8R,” she read.

“So you don’t forget.
”

Kera couldn’t help but smile and feel guilty at the same time. She waved him off and looked back at the phone. She noticed she had
messages.

On the way back to her dorm she
tried to concentrate on hopping just right as she
listened to them.
Her dad was frantic.

“Kera,” her dad scolded her when she called him back, “I almost flew back up there. Do you know how much I have been worrying about you?”

Kera lay back on her bed and smiled. She loved it when he got over protective. “I told you I have friends to help me.” This time when she said it, she wasn’t lying. Had it really only been
three days since she started seeing Maddox?

“That’s good.” She could hear her father’s voice smile on the other end. “Does she live on your floor?”

Kera felt a moment of actual nervousness. She had a secret she actually got to reveal to her father. “He doesn’t.”

“He.” The word was said like it tasted bad on his tongue.
“When did you meet this boy?”

Kera sat up, “The first day I was here.”
She answered
. “He’s rebuilding a car. It’s an old M
ustang l
ike one of the cars in your magazines.”

Her dad was quiet for a moment but Kera could hear his thundering pulse. “It’s kind of early don’t you think? You never dated any of the boys you know and now you have one you just met. How do you know he is reliable? Is he helping you up to your room?”

“Yes.”
Kera smiled. Her father was probably thinking the worst
. “He is the one who brought me to the hospital last weekend. He saved my life.”

“Did he now?” Her father paused and she stayed quiet to give him a moment to process. “How come you didn’t tell me this when I was there? Were you afraid I would want to meet him?”