Shameful by May Dawson
16
Rhett
West had been typicallysilent on our drive back through increasingly familiar territory.
“Want to stop for a drink at Brews and Pews?” I asked lightly. “Fiona had a little crush on you, I think. Get a drink…”
“We don’t have time to waste. You heard Killian.”
“Oh come on. This is the best break we’re going to get from the island. Who knows how much longer we’ll spend in captivity?” I slapped his shoulder. “Spread your wings!”
West didn’t even bother to look at me. My brother did not have wings.
“God, you’re a boring person to spend the rest of my life trapped with,” I muttered. He’d ignored the witch Fiona’s crush on him when we’d gone on our one-and-only mission with Killian.
West, for all his grumpy silence, believed in true love. And he was waiting for his fated mate. It was a strange romantic notion for a man whose only career had ever been busting heads and now slaying ghosts.
“Let’s just get Legacy and get back. She must be…” He trailed off, as if his imagination failed him when he tried to picture human emotion.
“She must be,” I agreed. Cyrus had taken us to the island when he went to meet the Elders; we hadn’t known we were being left behind until it was too late. The memory still made my jaw tighten.
Legacy didn’t deserve what was coming. But we could try to make it easier onher.
“Maybe we should all run,” I mused. “Once we’ve gother.”
“Great idea. I’m sure she’d welcome death rather than spend the next twenty years staring at yourface.”
“We can get away from Killian and the Guard,” I scoffed.
West didn’t say anything, but the man could make silence sound doubtful.
He and Killian used to love to spar, so maybe he had a better sense of Killian’s capabilities than I did. Getting punched in the face was never my idea of a good time. He’d even challenged Killian once, trying to get us off the island.
I brought up a lot of things to torment my brother, but I never brought up that day. Even I had limits.
Not many, though.
“Do you think she and Lucas…” I gripped the steering wheel tighter so I could roll my hips forward a few times, and West sighed and put his head down on the glass, closing his eyes. “I hear that makes it worse when a mate rejectsthem.”
“We don’t know that he rejected her. Don’t get too excitedyet.”
“He let Cyrus abandon her.” I shook my head, remembering the bright-eyed, freckle-faced teenage girl who had been such an ass-kicker. Lucas was a real moron.
The thought of Legacy being hurt, broken, alone, made my fingers tighten on the steering wheel, and West shot me alook.
“Whatever you’re thinking,” he said. “Don’t.”
“Mm?” I always had a scheme. My brother didn’t know my intentions quite yet, but I planned to make a pick-up on our way home. We needed electronics to communicate with the outside world. That might give us a chance to subvert the sensor system that triggered the Guard when unauthorized boats approached the island.
We crested a hill and a familiar forest spread in front of us. Pack territory. Home. I hadn’t expected the sudden lump that rose in my throat. I shouldn’t care; it wasn’t home anymore when I was unwanted.
“How do you think Mom’s doing?” I asked West, already knowing he wouldn’t answer a question like that. He pretended I hadn’t spoken, and my fingers twitched on the steering wheel. My brother always knew how to make me feel ashamed for even having emotions.
I started to hum country roads take me home as we drove the winding trails under the pines. We used to run through these woods. We passed the sandy path that led through the woods to the fishing hole, which was also where I’d lost my virginity to the alpha’s daughter, a long timeago.
I pulled up into Cyrus’s driveway. The big white stone house towered over us as I got out and slammed the car doorshut.
I’d come here for a lot of late night meetings with Cyrus, once upon a time, when he was using West and me to do his dirty work. Before we became a liability.
After our Reject Island vacation for the past few years, we were back to doing his dirtywork.
Cyrus came out of the house. “Get out of here for a while, I’ll have Tyrone text you when the girl’s family has left the house. Then you can go pack her shit up for the island.”
Lucas hovered behind him. The second I saw his mealy face, anger flashed through mygut.
“Hello to you too,” I said. West stood by my side, an unmovable wall of muscle, regarding Cyrus with his usual blank face. People thought West was stupid because he never talked; he thought people were stupid because they did. “Anywhere in particular you want us togo?”
“Just stay out of sight.”
I saluted him with two fingers, then sauntered back to the car. The two of us gotin.
“So, Mom’s?” I asked brightly. “Or do you want to go for milkshakes? Maybe…”
West shook his head. “We can just park in the woods andwait.”
“You’re so boring. I don’t understand how the two of us can be related.”
“Drive.”
So I did. But as I pulled into another driveway, West demanded, “What the fuck are you doing?”
“You told me to drive. I drove ushere.”
“Why?”
“So Killian can oweus.”
He gave me one of those looks like he saw right throughme.
I just smiled back at him before I straightened and slammed the car door. “You can stay here,” I offered through the glass. It was easier to talk to anyone without my brother hovering behind my shoulder with his six-foot-four body and murderousgaze.
Then I bounced up the steps and rang Killian’s old doorbell before I leaned my shoulder in the doorway.
The door swung open a second later.
Sean stared at me, his eyes going wide. Then, before I could even say anything, he blurted out, “I’ve got to get to the blood drive.”
“Oh, Cyrus is still expecting a war that never comes, is he?” I looked at my fingernailsidly.
He started to head past me out the door, and I pushed him back. Kept pushing him until the back of his knees hit the sofa, then shoved himdown.
He stared up at me, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “Where’s Killian?”
“Still on the island.” And I knew that somehow, that was Sean’s fault. I just didn’t know the details, and West always said I wasnosy.
Sean looked so much like a younger, more slender version of Killian, except Killian would’ve been impossible to push around—if it hadn’t been for Sean. Sean kept Killian loyal to Cyrus, and I really wanted to knowwhy.
“Your brother wants to know how you are,” Isaid.
Sean glowered up at me from the couch. “How come Cyrus let you out but nothim?”
Outwas a fantasy, but it was one I was content toplay.
“He said you were too dangerous to stay in our pack,” Sean repeated, almost half to himself.
“He’s right,” I said with a smile. “So you should stop being a little bitch and tell me what I want to know. Killian needs a report on how his baby brother is doing.”
Sean glared up at me. “I’mfine.”
It was weird that he didn’t seem to care how Killian was doing. If West was gone, I’d do anything to make sure he was okay. Even though I knew he wouldn’t appreciate my efforts. He neverdid.
West stepped in behind me. “You must be a real disappointment to Killian.”
I rubbed my temples with my hand, never letting my attention slip from Sean no matter how relaxed I looked.
“He’s the one who got himself sent to Reject Island.” Sean’s jaw was tight, and he added, “Although rumor is that someone needed to babysit the two ofyou.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Someone needed to keep my dark twin here under control.”
West came up beside me, looming overSean.
I’d genuinely wanted to know about Sean’s life, to have something to bring back to Killian. And I’d hoped to unravel the secrets between Killian and Cyrus. Sean seemed as if he should be easier to talk to than Killian.
I smiled at Sean reassuringly, because I knew how intimidating West couldbe.
Sean’s eyes flickered between the two of us. He didn’t seem reassured.
“Tell me everything you know about vampires,” I said in an upbeat voice.
“Before we have our own blood donation,” West added.
It was always overkill with my brother.
Sometimes literally.
An hour later,we got the text from Tyrone to head to Legacy’s house. We let ourselves into the backdoor, entering the expansive, sunny kitchen. There were flowers on the marble counter and a bowl of fruit on the table. I snatched an apple from the bowl and crunched on it as I wandered through the house. It already felt like a violation to be inside Legacy’s home, there was no reason to be hungrytoo.
The two of us climbed the stairs and began opening doors.
“Found her room,” West called before he steppedin.
The second I walked into her room, the scent of her—this scent of sun-warmed grass and sugar cookies—slammed into me. This place already felt irritatingly like the kind of home I’d never had, a reminder of what I’d never have because of Reject Island. But she smelled like she should behome.
“Do you smell that?” I asked West, studying theroom.
He ripped her suitcase out of her walk-in closet, his movements brisk and single minded. “Smellwhat?”
“Humanity. You wouldn’t recognize it.” I strolled around her room, looking at the photos tacked to her mirror. Legacy had grown over the past few years, her face thinner than it was when I knew her, her body curvier. Long, dark hair hung around that gorgeous face and in most of her photos, she stood with her family or with her arm thrown around her blond best friend. I wracked my brain, trying to remember her name, but couldn’t.
I’d ignored Legacy, but she was the one I’d always had eyes fortoo.
West pulled a drawer out of her dresser and turned it over into the suitcase.
“Jesus man, a little finesse,” I suggested. “It’s bad enough what we’re doing toher.”
West frowned but didn’t answer.
“I know, I know, nothing’s going to change how cruel thisis.”
Cyrus destroyed everything he touched.
And everyone.