Bryce, page 2
part #2 of Anarock Shifters Series
He couldn’t exactly see it over here, but he sensed it. He sensed his brothers and his mother and his sister and all their friends and relatives living their lives while he sat out here alone.
He prodded the gator for doneness. He always liked gator meat, but after twenty-four hungry hours in the Quag, anything would taste good. He made the mistake of going without food for the last day and night. Never again. He wasn’t dead yet so he needed to eat.
He set his stick aside and leaned forward to tear off a chunk when, out of nowhere, an almighty geyser erupted out of the lake. It shot heavenward and a huge dragon burst into the air. It vaulted free of the spray and pivoted to land. It changed in mid-air and transformed into a woman.
She pounced down and landed in a crouch before she noticed him. When she straightened up, she arched an eyebrow and her lips parted. “Bryce? Bryce Griffin?”
He made a mock bow from the waist without getting up. “The very same. What are you doing out here, Alexa?”
“I should be asking you the same thing. I thought you’d be in town living it up with the rest of them.”
He snorted under his breath and lowered his eyes to his meal. He didn’t want to look at Alexa standing there so tall and beautiful against the dusky light. She looked ten times more amazing in those tight jeans and dripping t-shirt. She could make any red-blooded man cry with her drop-dead curves and her dreamy dark eyes, but she never gave any man a sideways glance. She never cared for anyone but Victor.
He waved to one side. “Take a seat. You can join me for dinner.”
She looked away across the lake. “I’m not hungry.”
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Don’t you like gator meat?”
“I like it just fine, but I just ate.” She fixed her haunted gaze on him. “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you out here instead of celebrating your brother’s nuptials? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you almost look like you’re out here feeling sorry for yourself.”
He leaned his head back against the tree bark. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?”
Bryce braced himself. He didn’t expect to have to explain himself to someone this soon. He thought he would have at least a month or so to dwell on his new state before he met anyone who might talk to him.
“What, Bryce?” she insisted. “What haven’t I heard?”
“Victor threw me out. He banished me from Anarock. Anyone who sees me can kill me with impunity. If I ever set foot in Anarock again, he’ll hunt me down and kill me himself. He said so in front of the whole assembly.” He cocked his head to study her. “You were there. You were at the ceremony.”
She looked away again and shifted her feet. “I left as soon as it ended. I couldn’t stay and watch…. that.”
He bent over his fire and stirred the embers. “Yeah, well, it happened after that. After everyone pledged their loyalty, my turn came. He could have killed me then and there. Malachai said he should, but he let me go instead. So here I am.”
Alexa observed him in silence. He didn’t have to look up to know what she was thinking. She was checking out his hair that he shaved close to his scalp as a symbol of…. of what? Of mourning? Of penance?
That wasn’t why he did it. He did it to mark his new status as a ghost, a pariah, a non-person in the sight of all New Breed. He was walking dead, a zombie without a home or a family. He was nothing.
When she spoke at last, she murmured in an undertone. “Why did he throw you out?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know that, either.” He leaned back and propped his elbow on his knee. “I thought everybody knew.”
“Well, I don’t. I’ve been out of the loop since Victor came back with that….” She cut it off before she said it.
Bryce’s head shot up and he gaped at her. “You too?”
She shrugged. She kept casting longing glances over the lake toward Anarock and home. The stars came out over there. At least one other person in this world sensed the same gnawing ache he did.
“I just don’t want to…. you know…. I don’t want to see him with her. It hurts too much.”
“So you ran away?” he asked. “I understand how you feel. I wish I had. I wouldn’t be in this mess now if I had.”
“I didn’t run away. I just… left.”
He frowned. “Is there a difference?”
“I didn’t have to leave. I could have stayed. I left for my own sanity.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t want Victor to be happy,” he chided. “If you cared about him that much, you should want him to be happy even if he’s not with you.”
“I don’t want Victor to be happy. I want him dead.” She glanced at him and lowered her eyes. “Sorry. I shouldn’t say that to you.”
He stiffened when heard that harsh bite in her voice. Then he shrugged. “Why shouldn’t you? I can’t do anything. I can’t report you if that’s what you’re worried about. You might as well say it to me. You’re not going to be saying it to anyone else out here.”
She looked around again without seeing anything. She kept shuffling from one foot to the other and looking behind her.
“Why don’t you sit down?” he suggested again. “It’ll be dark soon. You might as well spend the night here.”
She turned her mysterious eyes on him. She studied him for a minute. He blocked out the desire to try to divine what she was thinking. The realm of human thought and emotion no longer concerned him. He dwelt outside.
Finally, she crossed the last few feet and sat down cross-legged by his fire. The orange glow lit up her features and made her so much more beautiful. She didn’t know how beautiful she was. She never did. She never valued herself. She was always too busy chasing Victor.
He got busy tearing into the gator. He lifted it off the spit and slid it onto a flat piece of bark he prepared for that purpose. He tore off the hind leg and held it out to her. “Are you sure you don’t want some?”
She raised her hand and a magnificent smile lit up her features. “I’m sure. You go ahead.”
“As long as you don’t think I’m being rude….” He sank his teeth into it and the juice ran down his throat.
Alexa watched him eat. The sky faded until only the fire gleamed in the dark. She didn’t say anything until he finished eating and wiped his hands on a piece of cloth. “You still haven’t told me why Victor threw you out.”
He didn’t look up. He knew this would happen. Once she heard, she would probably walk away and leave him alone. That didn’t matter. He ought to be alone. He deserved that.
“Bryce?” she prompted. “Aren’t you going to tell me? A death sentence and banishment are pretty severe. What did you do?”
“I attacked him during the invasion.” He dared not look up at her. He trained his gaze on the coals. “I challenged him for the Crest while he was fighting the military.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t make a sound. She just sat there staring at him in silence. An eerie stillness surrounded her and his heart sank. He met up with the one person in all the world who didn’t know what he’d done. Now she knew. Now she would leave him to his fate or maybe she would try to kill him. That would be just flaming fucking perfect.
She didn’t say anything, though, and she didn’t move. She just sat there by the crackling fire. He dared to steal a peek at her. “Aren’t you going to say anything? Aren’t you going to tell me how I deserve to be banished or killed for doing something so low and cowardly?”
“Why would I do that? I just said I wished Victor was dead for marrying some bitch he doesn’t even know when I’ve given him my heart and soul for years. I would probably have attacked and killed them both during the invasion if I had known where to find them. I can’t exactly blame you for doing the same thing.”
He shook his head down at the flames. “You don’t understand. I didn’t just attack him. I was going to kill him when Pop came out of nowhere and defended him. He jumped in to guard Victor. He was trying to kill me when he got shot in the head. With his dying breath, he ordered Victor to get rid of me. Victor showed mercy by banishing me instead of executing me in front of everyone.”
She blinked at him. “Is that it? Is that all you’ve got to punish yourself about?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
She shrugged. “So you fucked up. So what? If your father hadn’t jumped in to defend Victor, you might have won and then you’d be sitting in Ogru-Kuche right now instead of him. Either way, he’d still be with her and I’d still be out in the cold, so don’t cry me a river about how Fate done you wrong. You’ve got your whole life in front of you.”
“You mean I’ve got the whole Quag in front of me with every hand against me. How am I supposed to live with that?”
“How should I know?” She reclined back and leaned on her elbows. “Maybe you won’t.”
He snorted again and turned away. “Thanks a lot for cheering me up.”
“I wasn’t trying to. It looks an awful lot to me like you don’t want to be cheered up.”
“And you do?” he fired back. “You want to cry over your broken heart and believe you’ll never love again ‘cuz some man married another woman? It’s pathetic. He never deserved you. He never cared a shit about you and you’re too tragic to see the men who would really love you back. You want to drag your tired ass after the one man who kicks your heart into the gutter so you can feel like Fate done you wrong. Don’t give me that shit about how I don’t want to be cheered up. Look at you. You’ve got everything going for you and here you are, miles from home, and you won’t even share my gator that I offered you.”
She bobbed her head back and forth. “And what man, may I ask, are you referring to that would really love me back? Tell me that and don’t go filling my head full of all kinds of crap about how you would ‘cuz we both know you ain’t but a trifling third wheel.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.
“Oh, don’t play me, Bryce Griffin,” she returned. “I saw the way you looked at her. You wanted her.”
“Who—not…. not Riley!” His jaw dropped. “You can’t think I wanted Riley.”
“Who do you think you’re kidding? Do you think I’m blind?”
“I never wanted Riley! She’s nothing but trouble. Besides, she’s married to my brother.”
Alexa’s finger shot out and she pointed in his face. “Ha! I gotcha! You just admitted it. You wanted her.”
“I did not! Shut up!”
“Is that why you attacked him in the street?” she crowed. “Did you think you would take the Crest and her in the same stroke? Admit it.”
“Shut the fuck up!” He lunged to his feet. How did she get under his skin so fast? “I never wanted Riley. She’s been a pain in the ass since we first found her. We had to nurse her through the goddamned seizures, for Christ’s sake. She nearly got us all killed. Besides, she…..”
He halted a few paces away. He had nothing to look at but the black lake spread out before him. The stars winked above his head. The fire’s heat was too far away now and left him chilled.
She didn’t cackle and poke fun at him now. She sat without saying anything and left him to ponder. Did he want Riley? Was he jealous when Victor hooked up with her instead? That couldn’t be right.
He heard his voice coming from somewhere far away. “I never wanted Riley. I might have been jealous, but not over her. I was jealous of Victor, sure. Victor gets everything he wants without even trying. Women flock to him. Pop favored him. He’s everything I could never be.” He heaved a sigh getting this out. He never expressed these feelings to anyone, not even himself. “I wanted the Crest, all right? I wanted half the attention from women that Victor gets. I wanted all that attention and the praise and the success. I’ll never get that now.”
He turned around to see Alexa gazing up at him in the firelight. She didn’t draw away. Her eyes gleamed with inner light.
He waved his hand at nothing in particular. “I suppose Riley represented all of that. We find some woman floating in the Quag and what do you know? She falls head over heels for who? For Victor. Not for me. Not for Finn or Lincoln or Isaac. Victor. Only Victor. All the women want Victor. Shit, even you want Victor. He’s married to someone else and you still want him. It’s sick. What does Victor have that I don’t have?”
Her eyes bugged and her jaw dropped. “You? All this time?”
He couldn’t look at her. He wound up staring out into the trees. “Well, what did you think? You’ve got your head so far up Victor’s ass you wouldn’t know another man if you tripped over him.”
She gawked at him with her mouth open. “Bryce!”
He shrugged and hurried back to his place. “Forget it. It doesn’t mean anything. Just forget I said anything. In the morning, you’ll go your way and I’ll go mine and we’ll both keep on believing that Fate done us wrong.”
He dropped onto the ground and set to work wrapping up the cooled gator. He bundled it in a length of plastic sheeting and stuffed it into his backpack. When he looked up, Alexa was scrutinizing him across the dying fire. “You’re right.”
“About what?”
“About me. About Victor. About all the women who have their heads so far up his ass they don’t know whether to shit or go blind.”
He bit back a smirk. “It’s not as bad as that.”
“It’s not as bad as that because you just told me. Thanks.”
His head shot up. “What for?”
She smiled at him and showed all her teeth. “For pulling my head out of his ass. I needed that.”
3
Alexa lifted her head and screwed her eyes shut against the morning glare. When she pried them open, she spotted Bryce standing by the lake. He cast a line into the water and reeled it back. “What the fuck are you doing?”
He spun around without moving his rod. “Good morning to you, too. This is what we call in my language, ‘fishing’.”
“I can see what you’re doing.” She pushed herself up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “My question is why the fuck are you doing it when you could just dive in and hunt for your fish.”
“I’m doing it because I like it. I’m doing it because it relaxes me. I’m doing it because I like doing something human for a change instead of always resorting to the dragon.” He scowled down at his reel and fiddled with something.
She turned away grumbling. “Do you have to be such a morning person?”
He chuckled to himself. “I’m only a morning person when it comes to fishing. Besides, now that you’re awake, it’s time to leave.”
“Leave!” she gasped. “What do you mean?”
He wound up his line and rested the rod against a tree. He picked up his backpack and rummaged inside it. “We’re leaving. We’re going deeper into the Quag.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “We?”
“Why not? You don’t think you’re going to stay here and moon over Victor for the rest of your life, do you?”
“No, I just….” She glanced around in confusion. “I never thought I’d be going with anybody else.”
“Neither did I, but since you’re here and I’m here and we’re both traveling away from Anarock, we might as well go together. You’re probably the only person alive who doesn’t want to see me dead. I mean…..” He checked himself. “You don’t want to see me dead, do you?”
“Of course not. I just…..”
“Oh, good. Well, come on. The day’s not getting any younger.”
He propped his backpack against the trunk next to his fishing rod. He sauntered away into the trees without a care in the world. He got twenty feet from her and stopped to look back. “Well? Aren’t you coming?”
She motioned right and left. She had to struggle to form words. “Aren’t you going to take your stuff?”
“Nope. I don’t need it and I couldn’t carry it anyway. We’re flying over.”
“Flying!” She couldn’t believe this.
He rotated around and cocked his head. “You didn’t think we were going to walk, did you?”
She climbed slowly to her feet trying to think of everything at once. She never expected to meet up with someone or travel with them. She always thought she’d be going it alone like…. well, like…. she couldn’t think what like. She just never thought she’d be traveling with anybody.
He waited for her to stagger to where he stood. The fog of sleep still clouded her mind. She would have liked to sit by the lake and think some more, to take in everything he said to her last night. He certainly had a way of stripping away the bullshit and laying it all on the line.
She liked that about him, but before she had time to think twice, he launched into the air. He transformed into a brilliant blue-green dragon glistening against the sun. In a few strong wing flaps, he dwindled to a sparkling dot against the blue dome of sky.
Well, what the hell, right? She lifted off and trailed him into the clouds. In a second, they rose so high no one on the ground could see them.
He flapped his wings in slow, languid rhythm so she could catch up. The icy wind hit her scales and snapped her out of her lethargy. She narrowed her eyes at him and put on speed. She rocketed past him and burned across his shoulder. She deliberately ducked once so her scales scraped his back before she dodged away.
The maneuver produced the desired effect. He bellowed in surprise and dove into the chase. She veered away just in time and bent all her muscle power to the game. She zoomed in every direction winding up and over and around and under him. He matched her move for move. He clapped his fangs at her and missed by inches.
She thrilled to the exhilaration of free flight without a care in the world. She didn’t need anything on the ground—not Victor, not Anarock, not her family, not Ogru-Kuche—none of it. She only needed this, the delight of fun and a companion with whom to share it.
Her dragon soul felt differently about Bryce than her human self. Up here, she shed her inhibitions. She experienced pure emotion and a long-forgotten yearning for a male. She no longer felt the old pull toward Victor. She knew only the wind and sun and the joy of playing with Bryce.
