“Balloons and flowers,” I choke out. “Can you believe that?” I direct my gaze to my feet, staring at the green blades under my boots and falling across the toes. Forcing myself to ignore the pain, I focus on doing what I need to do, and right now that is to get the hell away from here before anything bad happens. Something is on the verge of going down. I can feel the negative energy swirling around me.
Shit.
Squeezing my shoulder firmly, he says, “This is for the best, you know.” He keeps his voice gentle and low.
Nodding, I brush the irritating dampness from my cheeks. Didn’t I just resign myself to not do this anymore? This irritating cry-baby shit over two people who aren’t losing any sleep over my broken heart. “It’s bullshit that I have to leave my home, like I’m the one that did something wrong. They should be leaving. They should have to start their lives over somewhere else, not me.” I didn’t mean it. Not really. I don’t want to stay in this town anymore. There are too many memories and every place I look is just another surge of pain. Fuck Cody.
Not broken.
Not broken.
I chant to myself over and over. It’s my new mantra and I repeat it to myself every morning at least three times while I look at myself in the mirror. One day I will work up to ten. For right now, three is good enough.
Blowing out a deep breath, I slip my purse over my shoulder and pick up my duffel bag. Walking over to the truck, I toss my bag into the backseat of the king cab. I’m about to close the door when I notice something on the floorboard. Jeans, shirt, another pair of work boots. Picking up a boot, I stare at it. There’s only one reason Mace would have an extra set of clothes.
“Dammit,” I mutter. I know exactly what he’s planning.
“That’s everything.” Mace sets my rocking chair in the bed of the truck.
“What the hell are you thinking Mace,” I holler throwing his boot at him. “Are you out of your mind? You can’t go after Cody.”
“Why do you care what happens to that piece of shit after what he did to you?” Mace growls turning furious eyes on me.
“I don’t.” I shove him hard, but the big ox barely moves. “I care about you, you bonehead,” I huff. “Shifting and ripping into his ass, even though he deserves it, is a big mistake. I just bailed you out of jail Mace. Remember what the sheriff told me? One more fight and he’ll lock you up for sixty days. He’s had it out for you since you were a teenager. Do you think he’s fucking bluffing?”
His mouth opens, probably to blast me with some manly comeback about not caring, but no words come out, he draws a deep breath. “I wouldn’t hurt him bad. Just bleed him some.” He defends himself but we both know its bullshit. “This is shifter shit. He wouldn’t call the cops on me.”
“Maybe he won’t, but Sara will. She’s not bound by our culture.” Snorting out a sound of disbelief, I turn and grab my purse that I dropped in the dirt. “Besides, if you would’ve stopped short of killing him, it would’ve been a miracle.”
“Can you blame me? After what that fucker did to you, he deserves to bleed. A lot,” he grumbles.
“No one agrees with that more than me,” I sigh, “but what I don’t agree with, is my big brother going to jail for that asshole.” I want to kill Cody myself, but no matter how you slice it, no matter what happened to me, my piece of shit ex it wasn’t worth my brother losing his freedom for two months.
Keeping my eyes on Mace, I watch his big body as his muscles bunch and flex as he walks ahead to our trucks. I can still remember the first day I ran into the behemoth on the crowded streets of Denver. A runaway, living on the streets, I was just fourteen and determined to never go back to foster care. I’d only been out on those cold-ass, hard streets for a month and was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it when by the grace of god, big ass, growly Mace crossed my path.
He brought me to the home he shared with four other men who he called brothers, but only two of them were related. Zane, Trex, Lucien, and Wyatt. They all harbor monster animals who aren’t exactly stable. The men, like the animals inside them, have issues. Deep seated, traumatic issues. Not one of them was irreparably broken but they were pretty fucked up. Some of those reasons we talked about, others were kept locked up in a dark place deep inside them. I don’t mind big burly men with broken animals. I don’t mind secrets, hell I have plenty of my own and my animal is far from perfect.
Trex is the oldest and our alpha. His grizzly is savage and a straight up brawler. Trex struggles with controlling him due to his past profession. He was a mercenary for a while, who hunted down problem supernaturals that can’t be rehabilitated and are a danger to others. It was up to Trex and his team to put these problem sups down. Trex never shares much about those days. All the killing messed his bear up. He did tell me a story once when we were drinking. A female vampire drained sixty people before Trex stopped her. When he finally caught up with her, a family of five lay dead, spread out over their ranch house and left there like trash. Trex lost it, killed the vamp but he was never the same after that.
Zane’s panther is restless and prowls the woods all hours of the night hunting, but Zane keeps his panther from killing anything, usually. Sometimes he will kill a random deer, but he always butchers it the next day and either stores it in his freezer or gives it to some of the elders around town.
Lucien is the only lion shifter I’ve ever met in my life. A nocturnal hunter, he is always stalking someone. Not stalking to hunt and kill or anything, but to just watch. He would follow those who came out at night. I’m pretty sure no one in town is able to do anything without him knowing about it. No one had a secret he wouldn’t find out.
Wyatt, Mace’s biological brother, is a Grizzly and he has the least trouble with his bear. They are pretty much in harmony and because of that Wyatt is the peacekeeper in our little ragtag family. He isn’t as hot tempered as the rest, more levelheaded and that allowed him to think with his head when tensions were high, and shit was about to hit the fan. He’s good at it and I don’t know what we would do without him.
Among those five broken renegades I found my home. They loved me, cared for me, protected me and sheltered me whenever I let them. After seeing the balloons and flowers on Cody’s mailbox, I called Trex telling him I couldn’t stay here. He contacted Mace to fetch me, but I also had a sneaking suspicion that he sent Mace hoping that he’d run into Cody and knock him out. Kicking ass first and asking questions later is what Mace does best, but in this situation, there would be no questions. Only fist, claws and teeth. Cody’s wolf is a scrapper, but he’s still no match for a pissed off, massive Kodiak bear. He would never know how close he came to getting fucked up. Maybe I should tell him. Naw.
Mace yanks the driver door open and slides in. “I’m gonna miss you being down here. There’s no one to visit when I make the trek down once a month for supplies.” Mace helps out a lot of people, elders mostly. He does the shopping for more than a few whose health or lack of a vehicle prevent them from going down the mountain for things they need.
“I am going to miss that too.” My gaze wanders to the porch swing that hung to the right of the door. How many times did Cody and I sit snuggled up on that swing watching the sun come up? The night we mated, we came out here and Cody wrapped me up in a blanket. With his arms around me and my head pressed against his chest, we just held each other. It was beautiful or had been. Now, it’s nothing more than a painful memory of what had been and would never be again. I feel so fucking stupid for believing anything that came out of that man’s mouth. Spouting all that mumble jumble bullshit about me being the love of his life, about us being made for each other. Soul mates. What a crock of shit.