From the Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel) (2 page)

Had the coffee shop/bakery/café where I had gotten a part-time job not been busier than Hell on Halloween, the fact that I had been specifically requested would have set off alarm bells in my head. Nobody I knew back home, nobody I was close to, had a clue where I was
—it was the way I had wanted it. So it was with the thought that maybe some customer I’d served thought I was a manager (which I wasn’t) that had me saying politely as I put the receiver to my ear, “Cool Beans and Bakery, this is Juliette. How may I help you?”

“You lied to me.”

Instantly my eyes were darting around the crowded shop as I moved from behind the counter, making my way toward the office for some semblance of privacy. I should have known, I thought bitterly, that I would be tracked down after giving everyone the silent treatment for two weeks.

“How did you find me?” I asked.

“You lied to me,” the caller said again. “You gave me your word that you would call when you got where you were going—before the bus had even stopped at the terminal. It’s been two bloody weeks, Juliette.”

I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see me. “And I bet you tracked me down in less than two days, Lochlan. I bet that since you found out where I work, you probably know where I live, too. You’ve probably snuck into my room and watched me sleep, or to rifle through my underwear drawer when I’m not home.”

This actually earned me a chuckle, which was what I had been hoping for. Making him laugh meant, hopefully, that I wouldn’t get a lecture. Besides, we both knew that had he actually been inside my room, I’d have smelled him by now.

“That hovel is not your home,” Lochlan replied. “And speaking of home, have you any idea how crazy you’ve driven everyone with your disappearing act? Your mother actually asked your brother to ask me if I had seen or heard from you
recently—and you bloody know that’s saying something as Monica doesn’t trust me as far as she can throw me.”

“It’
s not a hovel,” I muttered, thinking of the single-room hotel suite I’d been living in since leaving home. There was a full-size bed, a TV with free cable, a small dining table, a mini-fridge, a microwave, a dresser and a bathroom. After fourteen days of microwaved or fast food dinners, I’d been thinking about getting one of those electric tabletop ranges so I could cook small meals, but other than that, I was doing just fine. I didn’t need a lot of space.

“I notice you didn’t deny knowing where it is,” I pressed.

Just then Karen stuck her head into the office. “Hey, I know your boyfriend’s got a sexy accent and all, but we’re getting slammed out here.”

I felt heat flushing my skin, and nearly growled aloud at hearing Lochlan laughing over the phone. Clearing my throat I said in reply, “Sorry, I’ll be right there.”

Karen disappeared and Loch was still laughing when I turned my attention back to the phone. “Oh, shut the hell up, bloodsucker,” I said tersely. “I haven’t got time to sit here and argue with you. I have to go.”

“Call your mum, Julie
tte. If not her, then call Mark. Let one of them hear the sound of your voice,” Lochlan told me, his voice going serious.

I sighed. Though I hated to admit it, he was right. It’d been too long since I had spoken to anyone back home. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

“Thank you, my dear. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Good
bye
, Vampire Ken.”

He chuckled. “See you soon
, Shapeshifter Barbie.”

***

Lochlan’s Parthian shot stayed with me through the rest of the morning. I feared that not only did the Irish-born vampire know where I lived, but that I would soon receive a visit from him either there or at my place of work. If he walked into Cool Beans I’d never hear the end of it from my female co-workers (and at least two of the males). I knew for sure that it was time to break my silence and call home, which would hopefully get Lochlan to go back there before he could wreak havoc on my new life.

After clocking out for lunch, I stepped outside to sit at one of the sidewalk tables, thankful that one was actually empty. The day was
cool but bright, so customers were braving the mild chill in down jackets with steaming cups of java in their hands. I wasn’t wearing a coat, but then cold weather didn’t really bother me; I am a shapeshifter, and we tend to run hot no matter what. Well, technically I’m one of the werekind, since I can only become one kind of animal, but the werewolves—despite there being others of the two-natured variety that are larger and stronger than they are—have claimed the prefix “were” for themselves. They don’t like any of the other Families to use it, which eventually led the rest of the animal-human community to take on the name “shapeshifter.” It was easy given that there hasn’t been a true shapeshifter—the kind that can take on any animal form they choose—in a very long time. There were no chimaera, as we called them, to challenge the name change.

I pulled my brand new cell phone
out of my pocket as I dropped into one of the four chairs at the little round table, and drawing a breath to shore up my nerve, I pressed the speed dial button for my brother’s home number.

“Hello?”
said Saphrona Caldwell, Mark’s bondmate, when the phone was answered after the second ring. I really hoped I hadn’t caught them in the middle of one of their bond-induced sexual interludes. Of course, if they’d been having sex, Saphrona probably wouldn’t have answered the phone at all.

“Hi Saphrona,” I said hesitantly.

“Oh my God! Juliette!” she exclaimed. “Where have you been? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” I told her, ignoring the first of her questions. That she had even asked meant that her brother had apparently kept having discovered my whereabouts to himself. While I was still bothered that he had come looking for me, I was grudgingly grateful that he had kept my location a secret.

Grudgingly, I noted silently, because it still felt really weird to find myself trusting or appreciating a vampire at all.

“Do you have any
idea how worried we’ve been about you?” Saphrona asked. “We—”

“
Hey babe,” I heard my brother’s voice come over the line. “Who’s on the phone?”

I fleetingly hoped she would lie to him even w
hile I knew it was futile to do so. “It’s Juliette, she finally called!”

“
Give me the phone,” Mark said gruffly, and I could picture him standing next to Saphrona in the kitchen of her house—their house now, since Mark was living with her—with his hand out waiting and a look of quiet fury on his face. Truthfully I knew I’d earned his wrath, but I was not particularly in the mood to argue with him.

As she was handing the phone over, I heard Saphrona telling Mark to stay calm, and I almost laughed. My future sister-in-law was obviously still oblivious to just how protective my brother could be, and how unreasonable he could be when he was that peculiar mix of pissed off and worried only a person who truly loves you could ever become. I was proven right a moment later when his voice came more clearly through the
speaker of my phone, and he yelled at me,

“Juliette Geraldine Singleton, where the
fuck
are you?!”

I barely managed to contain the instant flash of my temper that arose anytime someone
raised their voice at me—a short fuse was a side effect of having a dual nature. So was the defensive growl I could feel building in my chest, but I managed to wrangle that under control as well, and said through tightly pressed lips, “Mark, if you’re just going to scream at me, I’m hanging up.”

“Oh no
—don’t you
dare
, little sister. You don’t get to play that card,” Mark replied angrily. Though I didn’t hear her speak, Saphrona must have done something to indicate Mark should chill, because I next heard him say, “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I’m will
not
calm down right now. You know how crazy we’ve all been going over her.”

To me he said, “And I mean that, Juliette. You’ve driven everybody fucking
insane
with worry. You
do
remember what the hell happened the last time you went missing, don’t you?”

“As if I could forget
,” I snapped bitterly. Fact was I still had nightmares about being tortured by the henchmen of Saphrona’s bat-shit crazy sister. I broke out in cold sweats at the mere thought of what they had done to me that horrible night, and my super-heated blood turned to ice every time I remembered being tied to a bed and raped by both of them not 24 hours later.

My bro
ther groaned. He then took a breath and said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just pissed at you because you had me so damn worried. Believe it or not, Mom actually asked me the other day to ask Lochlan if
he’d
heard from you, and even I can tell she still doesn’t quite trust him. Where are you, Juliette? I know you left your car at Mom and Dad’s, so if you can’t get home just say the word and I’ll come get you.”

My throat closed up tight to listen to the worry and the hope in his voice. There were five years between my brother and I, but there was a time I’d felt as close
to him as though he were my twin. I used to share nearly everything with him (except, you know, girl stuff…and the shifter thing). And it wasn’t as if Mark hadn’t had his fair share of PTSD to deal with, what with having been a Marine Corps sniper for 11 years of his adult life and learning not even a month ago that the monsters in his boyhood closet were living next door.

Actually, right down the hall would be more accurate.

I drew in another deep breath to control the swell of my emotions. “I’m sorry to have made you all worry, I truly am,” I said, once again studiously avoiding the question of where I was—I wouldn’t put it past Mark to come up here looking for me no matter how much I told him to stay away. “But I needed to get away. I felt like I was being smothered with all the damn concern for my welfare. I mean, it’s not like I was the only one who went through hell that day. I just…I needed room to breathe without constantly tripping over somebody who was making sure I was okay.”

“I understand that, believe me,” Mark said. “But did you have to do all that free br
eathing in a whole other city—or state, or wherever the hell you are? My God, Juliette, the least you could have done was to tell someone you were leaving so we wouldn’t have worried about you.”

My respect for Lochlan Mackenna’s ability to keep a secret rose up a notch. He’d known three days before I left that I was planning to take off
—I’d even convinced him to drive me to the bus station. I knew that he was particularly close to his sister (his sire—the vamp who’d made him one—was Saphrona’s biological father), so the fact that he hadn’t said a single word to her about my plan to leave home for a while meant that he really did hold me in high esteem. That he, a vampire, cared a great deal about me, a shapeshifter—his natural enemy—enough to keep a promise that he had made to me despite my having failed to keep my own to him…

Yeah, I was kinda feeling like a jerk right then.

I sighed. “I’m probably never going to be able to apologize enough, but I really am sorry,” I told my brother. “Please tell Saphrona that, and Mom and Dad, too. You can even tell Lochlan if you want, that is if he’s even asked about me. Tell them I’m okay and that I’m fine. I’m just dealing with everything that happened in my own way, is all, and I need time away from everyone to do that.”

“Why don’t you tell them yours
elf? You know it would make Mom and Dad feel a whole lot better about you being gone if they could just hear your voice, sis,” Mark said.

“I can’t,” I replied. “And before you start yelling at me again, I know that I should. I just… I can’t. Calling you was hard enough.
”

A moment of silence followed, and then Mark said, “I guess this means you’re not coming home anytime soon.”

The hurt in his voice felt like a punch to the gut, and I was starting to hate myself for causing his pain. I hated that I had frightened my family by running away without leaving word, but I felt I had no choice. Had I told anyone but Lochlan my plans, they’d have tried to stop me.

“I’m sorry, Mark,” I said, wiping furiously at the tear that had escaped my
left eye. “Please don’t be mad at me. I love you, all of you, and God knows how much I miss you. I just can’t come home right now. I need to be by myself for a little while longer.”

“Alright,” he said. “I know how you can dig your heels in when you’ve made your mind up about something. Please, just promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

Mark sighed. “Be safe, little sister. Wherever you are, be safe.”

“I will, big brother. I promise.”

I bit my bottom lip as I pressed the End button, then I laid my phone on the table, braced my elbows on the edge, and dropped my head into my hands.

***

After sitting
for another ten or fifteen minutes just brooding over the conversation with my brother, I went inside to order something to eat. I hadn’t shifted in a while, but that didn’t mean my metabolism was less a furnace than it usually was, and I needed fuel. Of course, I’d lost my appetite by then, but I still ordered a mocha frappé and a cinnamon pretzel with cream cheese in the middle. I then returned to my table outside, where I mostly picked at the pretzel and barely sipped the frozen coffee. A moment later, Karen—the assistant manager who had come in shortly after I was hired and was close to becoming a friend—came and sat in the chair to my left. She said nothing at first, but I could feel her eyes on me, assessing me.