Our happily ever after ended in one fight and both of us were to blame for it. Back when Erra was rampaging through Atlanta, Kate and I had barely survived a huge fight with one of her creations at the Order. The Order’s office was half burned, half flooded, every window shattered, the walls still smoking. That’s when an emergency call came in from Clan Wolf. They were under attack by Erra too and they were dying. Kate and I wanted to help. Ted, the resident knight-defender, ordered us to stand down. He needed us at the Order.
Kate ripped off her Order ID and walked out. I didn’t. I was a knight. I had sworn an oath and I didn’t get to pick which orders I obeyed.
Raphael took it personally. In his mind I had rejected the shapeshifters, the Pack, and therefore I had rejected him. He was the prince of Atlanta’s boudas, the favorite son, loved, admired, and supported on every turn. To him being a shapeshifter was the most natural thing in the world.
To me being a shapeshifter meant being hurt, degraded, and living in fear. Every bone in my body had been broken by shapeshifters before I was ten years old. I’ve been stabbed, punched, kicked, whipped, and set on fire. I’ve watched my mother being beaten to a bloody pulp repeatedly and with vicious glee. I had rejected that life and chosen the Order instead. The knights were my pack and Ted was my alpha.
Raphael knew all this, or most of it. I had told him about my childhood. But to him all that abuse had been inflicted on me by “bad” shapeshifters. The Atlanta Pack consisted of “good” shapeshifters, with laws, discipline, and safety. He thought they deserved my loyalty above everyone else simply because all of us turned furry. He had expected me to walk away from everything I’d worked so hard for and be his bouda princess. We had an ugly fight and went our separate ways. Neither of us said we were through. We just stopped talking.
I meant to call him. I had planned to do it after we finally took Erra down, but in that last fight I was injured. My shapeshifter status came out, and the Order cordially requested my presence at its headquarters. It wasn’t the kind of invitation one declined. So I went to stand trial. I thought it was my chance to change the Order for the better. There were other people in the ranks like me, closet shapeshifters, secret not-quite-humans. I wanted to prove that we were worthy of knighthood. I had a stellar record, years of exemplary service, and the decorations and awards to prove it. I thought I had a shot. I had tried, so desperately tried, and in the end it was all for nothing. The Order got rid of me and that was that.
I couldn’t change the past, but I could work on the present. I was miserable without Raphael. I knew exactly why I hadn’t picked up the phone. Sure, some of it was pride. Some of it was anger. I was tired of everyone judging me. The Order judged me for being a shapeshifter. The shapeshifters judged me for having the wrong kind of father. In a time when my life really sucked, I had needed Raphael to be that one person who didn’t judge me, and I was angry because he did. But deep under it all was fear. As long as I didn’t call him, Raphael couldn’t tell me that we were over.
How is it that I could run into a gunfight against overwhelming odds and put myself between bullets and civilians, but I couldn’t scrape together enough courage to speak to the one person who mattered the most to me?
I walked into the kitchen, picked up the phone, and dialed Raphael’s number. We had something, damn it. We loved each other. I missed him. He had to miss me, too. We needed to stop being stupid and sort things out.
The phone rang.
He would understand. If he just gave me a chance, I would make him understand all of it.
Something wet touched my cheek and I realized it was a tear. Jesus Christ. I wiped it off. It was good that I was alone and nobody could see it.
The answering machine clicked on. Raphael’s voice said, “Raphael Medrano. Leave a message.”
Keep it together. Keep it professional.
“Hi, it’s me. Jim asked me to look into the murders at your work site. I need to interview you, so I thought maybe we could meet at my office tomorrow morning.” Neutral territory, no memories to get in the way. I hesitated. “I know we didn’t part on the best terms, and I regret that. We both made some mistakes. I hope we can put this aside and try to work together on this investigation.”
I miss you. I miss you terribly.
“I would like a chance to clear the air. I…I have some things to tell you that are long overdue. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I hung up.
It hadn’t sounded right. That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to say. But then again, crying hysterically into the phone and sobbing about how his scent made me want to curl into a fetal position wouldn’t do any good. Sorry and tears had to wait until we met and were alone.
I could do this right. I just needed to sleep on it.
CHAPTER 3
The morning brought light and magic. I took a few extra minutes to decide what to wear. Not that it would make any difference, but I put on my pale blue shirt. It matched my eyes and looked nice. I put on my favorite jeans and looked at myself in the mirror.
Full-on makeup would be too much. I brushed some mascara on and styled my blond hair, which was doing its best to grow out of its shorter hairdo. Right after I got kicked out of the Order, I’d “frosted” the tips of my hair blue, but now the dye was all gone and I’d ended up with a head full of highlights instead.
Like a kid before the prom: gussying up and shaking with nerves. I crossed my arms and glared at myself in the mirror. Sniper, death, kill, tough, hooah. Okay, that was better.
Raphael always brought out a strange side of me. The wild side, the one that was knitted from pure emotions. That wild Andrea loved him completely and did irrational things, like sitting by the phone with her heart beating too fast, waiting for him to call, or running headfirst into danger against overwhelming odds to fight by his side. That wild Andrea once got arrested. We had gone away for a romantic retreat and while I left the hot tub in the courtyard of the hotel to use the bathroom, some floozy had attached herself to Raphael, not taking no for an answer. When I returned, instead of beating a swift retreat she suggested we should all have fun together. I had dunked her a couple of times. Unfortunately, I was pointing a gun at hotel security at the time, and the sheriff’s deputies showed up. Raphael ate it up. I was finally acting like a mated shapeshifter: irrational, possessive, and head over heels in love.
I didn’t know if that part of me was my hyena side or just that uncompromising fifteen-year-old girl that lives inside every woman, but now wasn’t the time to let her out. I had to stay rational, so I could apologize and try to mend things between me and Raphael.