Wild Side (Dark Side Series: Book 2)

Twenty-Seven

We thought we could watch a movie.

Be the way I'd pictured us back in the beginning. Be the way he'd pictured things for the future.

Caelan sat on the floor beside my case of DVDs, making fun of my collection, admitting he'd seen not even a single Disney movie through to the end. A plaid grey throw covered his shoulders; he wasn't cold so much as he was making me cold just looking at him, sitting there in a night-cooled house with an undershirt dampened from the past hour's snowball fight with Mila.

"Cal's miffed," I said to him from the comfort of my couch, watching his stack of rejected movies teeter on the edge of the tv stand.

"What have I done now?" He flipped through the remaining titles; I couldn't make much of his expression except for a singular dimple of a smile. "Besides you?"

Light little joke.

Normal.

This was nice.

He popped Magic Mike into the player and when he kept teasing and I'd turned red as a tomato and forgot the gnawing hunger in my belly, I let myself think, for just a passing flash of a moment, that we could have normal for a night, that we could have a taste of the good life.

The ho-hum life you never wanted, came the shadow at my shoulder. The shimmer of a reflection buzzed against the brightening screen as the opening credits began. Until you lost the chance at having it.

"You know this movie's about a bunch of insanely athletic dudes, don't you?" I asked Caelan, shifting my eyes onto the man as he dropped the throw on my lap.

"Thought you would like that," he said with feigned innocence, plopping down and wrapping his arm around my shoulder in casual affection. "Besides, if Mike and his friends want to do the heavy lifting, and all I've got to do is breeze through to claim the reward...."

"How opportunistic of you."

"It's in my nature, sugar," he said, with just a hint of Calico's crackling annoyance when it came to addressing the sheriff. His hand squeezed my shoulder.  He shifted enough to pull me into his lap. "Now if you'd kindly share the details of this new complaint your alpha's using to light a fire under my ass."

I sighed against his shoulder. "You won't travel with me. She thinks that's a scummy thing to do, knowing my situation, how I can't even seem to save myself."

I'll be there, came the voice like the ominous patter of a crow's wing against cathedral glass. Zakar's silky tail lashed against my cheek. The cat stretched over the curve of the cushions, black claws digging into the old fabric with a tiny ripping sound. I will always protect you. You and I are bound by something more than flesh and blood.

"Blood's all we're-" I caught myself mid-sentence, backpedaled to no avail. Caelan's expression soured. He didn't ask the obvious, instead let me stutter through a half-assed apology about talking to thin air. There was no getting rid of the devil on my shoulder, and everyone in the room knew it. My head dropped against Caelan's. I took a deep breath of his hair, smiled at the faint, clean whiff of my shampoo. "Cal's pissed at the world," I continued tiredly, "I wouldn't read much into what she says. She just wants her son back."

"Not all our lives revolve around Marcy Davins," Caelan agreed, and the last brief hope of a normal night died when he hit pause on the remote. A deep silence filled the room, but all I could hear was a deep purr over the mellow lilt of the sheriff's voice. "There are other people out in this world. She understands we've all got our obligations."