To Love a Shifter: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (108 page)

I refused to show the amazing sense of relief I was feeling.  “I’m not going after anybody,” I denied with as much dignity as I could muster.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it’s so.”

“Even if I tell you that Lucian also explained your presence in our home by identifying you as his online-turned-real-time girlfriend from Australia and that you came here as an exchange student to be with him?”

“He what?” I shrieked and immediately lost control.  Dyvian shouted my name as I fell down with horrendous speed.

“Dyvian,” I screamed, shock and fear paralyzing my limbs.

When I opened my eyes, I was in the Chevaliers’ garden, cradled in Lucian’s arms, and Dyvian was breathing hard in front me, his face white.

“How could you have fainted?”  Dyvian’s tone was pained.

I’m in Lucian’s arms. 
I could feel his heart beating fast against his hard chest.  Underneath me, his arms were strong and gentle at the same time. 
I’m in Lucian’s arms. 
Lucian tensed against me, and realizing that I was probably too heavy for him, I struggled to get up.  A wave of dizziness hit me at my sudden movement.

Lucian’s arms tightened.  “Later.”  His voice was unusually rough.

“H-how—”

“You fainted.  I caught you just in time and brought you home.”  Dyvian lifted a hand to his hair and I was surprised to see it shaking a little.

I looked up at Lucian, whose face was white in anxiety.  “Did I seriously scare you two that much?”

“You lost your balance a hundred feet off the ground, Deli, and you fainted.”  Dyvian shook his head.  “How could you react—it’s like fainting just because an ant bit you!”

Now, I began to feel silly and ashamed.  “I guess I’m just not used to, well, flying.”

“It’s good you understand that because from now on, I’m banning you from flying till you’ve had proper lessons,” Lucian informed me.

My jaw fell open.  “Banned?”

“Yes.  Banned.  And no arguments.”

I studied the grimness in his face and decided that I might have a better chance of arguing with him when he wasn’t so—emotional.  “Okay.”

Lucian’s eyes flashed.  “And I won’t change my mind.”

I didn’t dignify that with an answer.  “I think you can put me down now.”

Lucian didn’t say a word, but he slowly lowered me to the ground.

I swayed a bit, but I waved them away when they immediately moved to support me.  “I can do this.”

Lucian crossed his arms against his chest.  “Delilah?”

“Yeah?”  I took one careful step forward and was satisfied when no dizziness assaulted my head.

“What made you lose your balance?”

I blinked several times, surprised at the question.  And then his words hit me and I started to smile.  I turned to Dyvian.  He was whistling and he was looking up at the darkening sky like his life depended on finding the Big Dipper.

“You.”

Lucian stiffened.  “Excuse me?”

My grin widened all the more.  “Dyvian told me that you introduced me as your girlfriend.”  I batted my lashes at him.  “Honestly, Lucian, you could have told me first, don’t you think?”

A dull color spread throughout Lucian’s beautifully shaped cheekbones.  “I beg your pardon.”  His tone was so coldly polite that he could have dubbed for Prince Charles on television with no one the wiser.  “The question had taken me by surprise during the school interview and it was the first thing that occurred to me.”

I looked at him under my lashes.  “Really, now?”

“Yes.”  His tone got even colder, “really.”  But his cheeks were still stained with color.  “I also gave them all the necessary documents to prove that your parents had given me legal guardianship.”

“You know, you could have just said she was our cousin or something,” Dyvian suggested.

Lucian opened and closed his mouth.

Dyvian and I turned to each other and we immediately burst into laughter.

“I think your brother likes me,” I confided in him.

“For God’s sake.”

Ignoring Lucian’s outburst, Dyvian nodded and confirmed, “I think so, too.”

The door slammed shut.  Lucian walking out on us was fast becoming a familiar routine.  I turned back to face Dyvian.

He smiled.  “You like him, don’t you?”

“I didn’t plan to, and I didn’t want to, but yeah, I think I do.”  Maybe I’d regret admitting this to myself, much less to someone else, but right now, after the latest fright I had, acknowledging my feelings for Lucian was gloriously liberating.

“But it’s just a crush.  I mean, I like him, but I’m not in love with him or anything.” 
I hope.

“You will be.”

I wrinkled my nose at how confident Dyvian sounded.  “Will he?”

“Fall in love with you?”

I nodded.

Dyvian sighed.  “I’m not sure, but if there’s someone who could make him fall in love, it’s definitely you.”

I beamed.  “Aww.  You mean that?”

Dyvian returned my smile and said pleasantly, “Nope.  I was just kidding.”  And then laughing, he strolled back to the house.

Stupid Chevalier brothers.

I wasn’t what you’d call an overachiever.  I had simple goals in life and that didn’t change when I turned Evren.  For my first day of school, I only wanted to make new friends, have someone say I was pretty, and have a chance on the cheerleading squad.  Surely, that wasn’t so hard to achieve?

“You’re going to be okay.”  Dyvian shook my shoulders a little too hard, his voice a little too jovial.

I gave him a worried look.  “I know I am but are you?”  It was the first day of school and Dyvian was in a strange mood, waking up early to eat breakfast with Lucian and me, and now he was acting like a dad about to give his daughter away.

He grimaced.  Even with his sleep-tousled hair and sweat pants, Dyvian still managed to look better than most guys I knew.  “I’m not actually sure.  I just don’t think you’re ready to join humans yet.”

Here we go again
.

“News flash, Dyvian.  I was human less than a month ago, remember?  So, I don’t see any reason why I won’t be able to fit in just because I’m different inside.”

I walked toward the framed mirror hanging on the wall near the doorway.  I gazed critically at my reflection, making sure that my hair was all right.  I’d chosen to wear a please-everyone outfit—pink Balmain top to get a nod from the fashionistas, jeans for the no-nonsense dean’s list peeps, and de Pinto black bracelets for the rockers.  As the new girl in school, I didn’t want to box myself in on my first day.

Dyvian followed with a sigh.  “Just take care.  I’ll be in invisible form and—”

My eyes narrowed.  “No.  Swear to me you won’t be like this invisible nanny, guarding my every move.”  Didn’t he realize how weird that would make me feel?  And didn’t he understand how different I already was from the rest?  I wasn’t just the new girl in school.  I was also the new girl in town living with two guys I’d known for less than a month, and I had a dragon for a soul.  Didn’t that simply scream weird?

Dyvian’s normally carefree expression was still nowhere to be found.  “Honestly, Dyvian, I’m a big girl now.”  Lucian walked in from the kitchen and I sought his support.  “Right, Lucian?”

Again, there was this delicious feeling of excitement sweeping all over me at seeing Lucian.  Unlike his younger brother, Lucian was already dressed.  Still the usual outfit—same style, different color.

Lucian didn’t answer me, but looked at Dyvian instead.  “Just do what she says, Dyvian.  It’s her life.”

The frown on Dyvian’s face deepened, and he looked at Lucian like he didn’t understand why Lucian wasn’t backing him up.  But he nodded and muttered, “Fine.”

He was clearly unhappy, and I sought to cheer him up by teasing.  “Besides, Dyv, if I really needed someone to guard me, I’d rather have my
boyfriend
with me—”

“Here you go.”  Lucian quickly cut me off as he took a couple of bills from his wallet and slipped them in my hand.

Dyvian’s expression finally lightened and he started to chuckle.  “You got a point.  So, why shouldn’t your
boyfriend
—”

“And here are the keys to your SUV,” Lucian interrupted in a hurry and pushed me none too gently outside the house.  “Take care, have a great day at school.”

The door slammed shut and I stood there, gaping.  Then I found myself smiling wistfully as I turned and walked toward the SUV.  Lucian had just given me about a thousand dollars for my allowance and my own ride.  I would have thought my life was perfect if only my sister wasn’t in a coma, my parents weren’t dead, and I wasn’t hiding away from a bunch of reptilian killers.

I squared my shoulders.  But it was time to move on.  Mom and Dad wouldn’t have liked me to dwell on the past.  They’d rather have me pick up the pieces of my life and forge a new one.  Going to school was the first step.  Mastering my Evren abilities would follow, and later on, if ever the opportunity turned up, I thought it would be nice to kick some Zekan ass.  I might not have been exceptionally smart and strong, but you didn’t have to be either to kill, did you?

~~~

Dyvian and Lucian didn’t warn me it would be this noisy.  My head pounded as I tried to block the sounds invading my ears.  The whispers of the girls sitting behind me seemed like words blared out in a megaphone, and it didn’t help to know that they were talking about me.

So far, they’d wondered if the designer shoes I was wearing were fake—they weren’t, and I only got them after winning in Monopoly against Dyvian.  How many guys I’d slept with—none, unless I counted the time I really did just sleep next to Michael after almost having sex during prom night.  If I really was Lucian’s girlfriend—another negative, unfortunately.  And what Lucian Chevalier could have possibly seen in me—I wondered about this, too.

The school bell rang, and I winced because the sound almost made my eardrums crack.

Relax.

I stiffened in surprise when The Voice—I’d decided to give it a name to make it sound less frightening—spoke out of the blue.  I still hadn’t confided to either Dyvian or Lucian about it.  I didn’t want to find out that it was a hallucination and that my turning Evren might have made me insane.

And yes, it was another head-in-the-sand decision for me again.

The Voice still sounded like Lucian and I had also decided that was because he was the one person I trusted and relied on the most.

“You have to relax and take control of your senses.  Then they’ll automatically modulate the sounds for you.”

I closed my eyes and willed myself to relax.  The sounds faded little by little and I smiled.  It was working.  Thank God for—

“You’re in my seat,” a voice said coolly, followed right after by a swift hard kick to my shin.

I opened my eyes.  If I were still human, I’m sure the kick would’ve hurt badly.  But I was Evren and the kick landed on my skin like an inconsequential but pesky fly.

A tall, statuesque blonde in a glitzy blue dress and funky red sandals stared at me disdainfully, her expression mirrored by the small circle of girls surrounding her.  The rest of the class watched in spellbound silence.  Everyone’s reaction—or lack of it—told me all I needed to know.

The blonde girl was the Queen—all schools had one.  The Queen might or might not have a King, but one thing she did have was power.

I smiled brightly, certain I could smooth things between us.  I had never had problems with anyone in my old school, and I didn’t see why it had to change now.  I stood giving a little wave of my fingers.  “Hi.  I didn’t know you were—”

“Did I give this idiot any reason to think I wanted to hear what she has to say?”

“You so did not,” Royal Servant Girl Number One trilled.

“Because honestly, I don’t.”  She tried to shove me out of her way, scowled when I didn’t even budge, and went round me instead to take her seat.

The Queen’s nose lifted in the air before saying very clearly, “Loser.”  The other girls started shoving me as well and, shocked at being called the L-word, I let them have their way even though I could’ve held all of them back with my little finger.

Other kids in the room hastily looked away when they were in danger of meeting my stunned gaze.

This might be the understatement of the year, but I thought I had just received my first lesson in public humiliation.

The rest of the morning was barely better.  If I wasn’t being picked on by the Queen and her mindless, personality-deficient RS girls, I was being painfully and studiously ignored.  Maybe Dyvian was right to be worried.

When lunch break came, I wasn’t really feeling hungry, but I still forced my feet to head to the cafeteria, too proud to do anything else.  The food they served was surprisingly good even though the choices were not as diverse as I had hoped.  Wasn’t Sanger High informed about the existence of low-fat yogurt, for instance, or pesto pasta?

Tray in hand, I paused a while to study the cafeteria.  It was like living a scene straight out of a teen flick, and I played the usual underdog role.  If I wanted this to end just like the movies—which meant winning over the entire school to my side and having a handsome guy in love with me in the end—the next thing I was supposed to do was look for the table where I could join social outcasts like me.

I spotted a match in seconds and headed toward it.  With every step I took, the tables I passed were blanketed in silence, as if they had to concentrate real hard on me, hoping they’d find something new to gossip about.

I stubbornly focused my attention on my future friend, a slim redhead with creamy skin.  She was exceedingly pretty, just as long as you didn’t mind the multiple piercings in her left ear and her intimidating all-black attire.  She sort of looked like a young Catherine Zeta Jones with red hair and Goth fashion taste.

There could be no doubt about her lack of popularity.  She was alone at the table, sitting right next to the trash bins, and being stared at.  Oh, yes, unpopular with a capital
U
.  We were so going to bond.

“Hi!”  I tried not to sound so perky but failed.  I was just too excited at the opportunity of finally having a new friend in school.  Being unpopular was honestly draining my energy.  “Could we share?”

The girl looked up.  Her eyes were a beautiful shade of blue.  When she spoke, I detected a faint accent in her tone.  “I don’t own the table.”

Taking that as a yes, I sat next to her and pretended to ignore her raised eyebrow.  Maybe I was pushing it, sitting BFF close, but I just badly needed a friend.  My sister used to say I had a pathological need to make friends.  Maybe she was right, but surely feeling friendly all the time wasn’t that bad, right?

I unwrapped my ham and egg sandwich.  “So, what’s your next class?”

“History.”  She went back to ignoring me.

I tried again.  “I’m new here, by the way.  You can call me Deli—”

“—but your full name is Delilah Winters.  You come from Australia and you live with the Chevalier brothers,” the redhead ended.  “You pissed off Melissa, the much-revered cheerleader captain of Sanger High, because she’s been after Lucian forever so she made sure this morning everyone knows you’re not one of her favorite people in the world.”

“You know Lucian?”

“Everyone knows who Lucian
and
Dyvian are.  They come into town, maybe, once a week and everything practically comes to a standstill.  Everyone even knows that you like to help Dyvian with that rock garden of his.”

Stunned at how much she, and apparently the rest of the school, knew about me, I sat back and said weakly, “Nice to meet you.”

The other girl stared at me before a smile slowly formed on her lips.  “I’m Audrey, by the way.”

“Hello, Audrey.”