A teaser: As she turned into the motel parking lot, pulling her little car past the eighteen wheelers that had parked there overnight, she finally spoke. “After this, I’m through.” “Through?” He knew silence equaled ultimatum. It always had. “Yes. Done with all of it. You. Your family. My family. This connection we are supposed to have. The way I’m assumed to be at your beck and call. Through.” She couldn’t mean that. Even though it had been a while since they’d seen each other, he still wanted her the way he always had and always would. If she did mean it, he knew it would kill him. He had never known a pair of mated second-borns to live without one another. “You can’t walk away from me.” Pain clenched his gut as the words came out sounding more like a growl than English. The full implication of her words hit him. If she was really through with him, he would live the rest of his life in mourning for her. She was his. Meant to be his. Decreed to be his by her birth. There was no way he could let her go. He always knew she would come back to him due to either her family loyalty or tradition, but if she cut the ties with him and walked away…he couldn’t bear to think of it. “I want out. I don’t want to be called back here every time you get into trouble, every time you need a quick change artist to cover your ass. Find someone else. I want my own life.” He grabbed her hand, pulling her wrist to his, lining up the tattoos on their skin, tattoos that had been there since they turned sixteen and marked them as belonging to one another. “Your life is here. Your life is bound up in this, with me, with our families.” “Then my life is a lie. This obligation is a lie. I want more.” “What do you want, Sage? To go blow up whaling ships and set fire to puppy mills? If you want a fight, there’s one right here in this state. There’s enough legal mumbo jumbo and wildlife causes that need a vigilante to keep you busy forever.” And there’s me. The last was right there on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t say it. He wouldn’t beg her to stay, but he had to find a way to convince her nonetheless. Sage pulled away from him, ignoring the heat from his fingers as they grazed against her skin, ignoring the way her heart hammered in her chest and the way her body wanted nothing more than to lean into him, press against him and forget she had ever told him what had been on her mind. But she had to get away from him, from this thing between them that would never be more than just obligation. Her tattoo practically burned under his touch, the bastardization of the Fleur de lis a symbol of the land shared by the Maddux and Villalobos families, a land they had vowed to protect. The symbol also marked her as the second born, belonging to Kenyon Maddux, second born of his line, a fact that she’d heard ad nauseum since she turned thirteen. Even so, she would never forget the first time she had gone to Lafayette to meet Kenyon. Her grandfather had brought her to the Maddux compound a few months after she’d turned thirteen, and even then the dark haired boy whose tiger stripes were just now beginning to come into view fascinated her beyond belief. She had watched him the entire week she had been there, catching his golden stare on her until they had finally spoken to one another. What followed was her first kiss, a peck on the cheek, that ignited a fire inside her she wasn’t old enough to understand. Even though Kenyon was still the only one for her, she’d had it up to her neck in tradition, was sick of the word and every implication from it, was tired of this misplaced sense of loyalty that always got her the same thing—a demand from Kenyon, a proclamation of his ownership over her. It wasn’t what she wanted from him, but what she wanted was a thousand times more complicated. Love. Being away from Kenyon had solidified that notion, the one thing he had never voiced, the one thing she wasn’t sure he could offer. As silly as it sounded, as movie of the week as it was in its madness, she wanted Kenyon to love her the way she loved him, all the way to the pit of her soul in a way that had nothing at all to do with traditions and tattoos and had everything to do with two people who belonged together. “Fine.” Kenyon uttered a word she never thought she’d hear, an agreement. Setting his jaw and stretching his long legs as he opened the car door and stood, he looked more than a little dangerous, his golden eyes glowing. “You help me free my brother and you can walk away but I want you to know one thing, Sage. If you walk away from me, I will not chase you. If you don’t want to be here, I won’t go after you.” “Fine.” It was her turn to say the word, to set her jaw in sheer determination. Grabbing her bag and flinging it over her shoulder, she closed the car door and steadied herself, straightening her shoulders, not letting him know how deeply his agreement had cut into her. It was what she wanted. Freedom. But it felt like a dagger in her heart. The breath that Sage blew out should have been liberating, should have felt like freedom, but it wasn’t. It was crushing, lodging in her throat, cutting off her airways. “Fine,” she heard him mutter under his breath as he took off, his long strides leaving her in the parking lot as he headed toward the motel room. I was wrong! She fought the urge to take back what she had just said, realizing how stupid she sounded in her own head. This was what she wanted. Kenyon’s undying love or freedom from the whole situation. She just never thought it would hurt this badly.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Oct 2013 23:51:39 +0000
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