Animalistic Galley Fin (12 page)

~~~

Trent hurled his fist against the door and dented it with a crack.

Damn it!

Now he’d gone and ruined it. All because he couldn’t control his urge to shift. He stole nighttime moments to let his beast roam for a few hours. It was hard to do since he was in the middle of the city. His family had a vast estate in Aspen, just for that purpose, but he couldn’t fly there just when things with Arielle were going so well.

The Alexander clan had one weakness: once a male shifter found his mate, the beastly part of him demanded that he marked and bound her. In order to do that, he must get consent from her. It wouldn’t be a problem if Arielle was a cryptid. Any relationship with an outside species had always been frowned upon by the underground community and considered too difficult. After all, they had survived all these years living in human society by closely guarding their secret. Only a fraction of the human population was aware of their existence and cohabited with them, while the majority had remained blissfully oblivious.

Arielle was the first human female he had dated. The three women from his previous relationship were shifters like him. His first girl was a kitsune. His second and third were weretigers, like him. Who would have thought, he would fall for a human? It wasn’t like he could choose who he’d fall in love with.

Unfortunately, cupid’s arrow was unpredictable.

Go after her
, his tiger demanded.
Now!

He faltered.

Instinct told him to get her and talk to her. Make her understand. She belonged to him. She had to accept him no matter what. Every male weretiger was driven by his primitive dominant nature. The urge was so overwhelming, he found his feet already turning in the direction where he ditched his clothes.

Then he stopped himself.

He didn’t want her to hate him. She was fragile. She’d just gone through hell. If he pushed her, she’d break and he couldn’t put back together something broken. Not the way it used to be, anyway.

Are you going to let her walk around outside at this ungodly hour
? His tiger reasoned.
This is New York City.

He guessed not.

Maybe he should just follow her. To make sure she was safe.

Trent hurriedly put on his shirt and boxers. He then leapt from one edge of the roof to the next using
parkour
, a style of free-running he learned in his late teens, to follow Arielle without her noticing. He vaulted, ran, climbed, and swung from one building to another in silent grace. Being a shifter only enhanced his flexibility and physical strength.

He recognized Arielle from the pink hooded sweats she bought recently. She walked fast with her head down, as if she didn’t know where she was going. After following her for a few blocks, he was convinced she didn’t. At one point, she just stood for few a minutes at an intersection as the light went from green to red to green again. As he was crouching on the roof of an apartment building, his heart ached. She was in his line of sight and yet, he couldn’t touch her. Temptation waged a war with his logic. Wanting her didn’t even begin to describe his feeling.

Hissing between his teeth, Trent felt his upper arms sprout with fur and his nails elongated into retractable claws.

Calm down, beast.

His eyes darted in the direction Arielle was walking.

Apparently, Arielle decided not to cross the intersection and instead went to the right, still trudging the sidewalks.

Trent moved. He could smell her, smelled himself on her, and it drove him crazy.
Mine. Ours. Their woman.
What was he waiting for? The time was now, while the night was the blackest, right before the sunrise.

Arielle paused under the balcony of another brownstone. Trent felt his blood rush to his head. His ears were ringing.

Catch her!

The sweet command felt like a euphoric trance. He leapt in a flash and slunk to the balcony like a dangerous phantom. He climbed out of the railings, hand extending over her, ready to grab her—

And he froze.

She was crying.

Shit.

He snapped back to reality and immediately retreated behind the railing.

If he did this, he was no better than those who had hurt her. He hated to see a woman cry. He hated it even more if he was the cause.

His heart froze in his chest.

What had he almost done?

He was about to commit a grave mistake. If he forced her back like this, it proved that he was being a selfish monster, not because it was what they both needed. He had sworn to protect her, and it was clear that right now, the only person she needed protecting from was him. What a lecherous bastard he was. His parents didn’t raise him to behave like this. He should be a better boyfriend. A better person…

Trent clenched his hand into a fist and brought it to his mouth. He bit down on his knuckles until they bled. The shot of pain jarred some sense into him, sobering him even more.
Control your damn beast
; he could hear his late father’s voice in the back of his mind. He had been a slow learner compared to his brothers. He managed to rein in his tiger most of the time, but facing his current dilemma, it was easy for him to slip.

He slowly sucked air through his teeth. He had to leave before he slipped again and did the unthinkable.

Slowly he got back to his feet, then climbed to the side of the building and vaulted to the roof. He took another glance in her direction—he couldn’t see her—before he vanished into the early morning light.

~~~

Arielle had only been walking for an hour—she saw the clock at a twenty-four-hour diner—but it felt as if she had been walking for miles. She wiped her tears away and wondered why she let herself be reduced to this state? No problem in the world was without solution and this one was the same. She questioned why she became upset in the first place. Was it because he was a shifter or because he kept that fact hidden from her? Was it because he had betrayed her trust by not telling her such an important fact before they started dating? Was it really a deal breaker that Trent wasn’t fully human?

Did she overreact to this whole situation? So what if he wasn’t entirely human. Was that so bad? Whatever he was, Trent was still the same on the inside. She knew he loved her.

And she loved him.

That thought made her stop in tracks.

A twinge of ache stirred deep inside her chest once she was honest with herself.

Yes, I love him. I love that he’s a sweet and gentle guy, but he can be a demanding and fierce lover. He’s funny and polite and he never leaves the toilet seat up. He’s the man every woman has been dreaming their entire life.

He never criticizes me. Never belittles me.

He respects my space and boundaries and he’s always there when I need him the most.

I would be crazy to let him go.

That man’s a keeper.

She pushed down the hood of her sweatshirt and looked up to the sky. The cloak of night still shrouded the new day, but at the edge of the horizon, a splash of dawn slowly made its presence known with every passing minute.

Beautiful,
she thought.
The day gets bright so early in the summer.
When was the last time she appreciated the little things like she was now? She’d been so wrapped up in her problems, she’d forgotten to take a breather once in a while. And Trent had taught her to slow down and appreciate what life had to offer.

I can’t imagine life without him now.

The very thought scared her. No. She didn’t want to lose him. Just when she finally met someone who made her happy.

She took a deep breath and everything became lighter. She looked around, taking in her surroundings. Good lord, she didn’t even recognize where she was anymore. She definitely wasn’t in the Village.

She’d better head back.

But first, she had to call Trent. He must have been worried. Especially considering the way she left. She searched in her pocket for her phone and realized she had forgotten to take it with her.
Geez.
Why do I keep forgetting that damn thing?
She walked around and found a pay phone by a bar at a small intersection. Come to think of it, pay phones were a rarity in the city now; she was kind of shocked to find one at all. Worst of all, she didn’t have a single dollar on her, so she was deeply relieved when the dial tone worked. After wiping the receiver on her jacket, she pushed “0” for the operator. Her heart leapt with joy when someone answered on the end of the line.

“Um, hello? I’d like to place a collect call to Trent Alexander, please. The number is…”

Chapter Ten

Trent brooded in the living room of the apartment. His mood was getting darker by the second since he got back. The suspense was killing him. Would she come back? Would she leave? Was she so repulsed by him that she wouldn’t want to see him again? Not knowing what would happen was slowly chiseling away his sanity.

He jumped when his phone rang and answered without checking the caller. “Yes? I’ll accept the charges. Arielle? Where are you? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I think I’m lost and I forgot my phone.”

“I’ll come and pick you up.”

“No, you don’t have to do that. I’ll just hail a cab when I see one. Listen, Trent, I want to apologize for what I did earlier. I acted irrationally and that must have offended you, and for that, I’m sorry. I was so surprised, I freaked out.”

“I’m the one who should’ve apologized to you, Arielle. I should have never deceived you in the first place.”

“I probably wouldn’t have believed it if you’d just told me. I understand why you kept that from me. But I think we can work this thing out, Trent.”

A flicker of hope lit from the depth of his uneasiness. “So, you’ll stay?”

A quiet laugh. “Yes. I’m not going to give up on you that easily, Trent. You didn’t give up on me. You’ve been there when I needed someone, when no one else was there to help me. My world is better with you in it.”

At that very moment, the heavy burden in his chest vanished.
She was staying. She wanted him!
Trent felt like laughing out loud.

“Naturally, I have a lot of questions I want to ask you,” she added. “And I don’t know where to begin.”

“You need to come home first.”

“I know. I don’t see a taxi around…”

“I’ll pick you up; just tell me where you are.”

“Um, I’m not quite sure. I don’t see a street sign…”

Trent waited. “Arielle?”

He heard men’s voices in the background and the sounds of scuffling. Then, the sound of the receiver hitting the pavement.

Trent jumped from the sofa. “Arielle? Answer me! Arielle? Arielle!”

The line went dead.

He almost hurled the phone into the wall from frustration. Damn! What happened to her? Was she being mugged again? That woman was a magnet for trouble. He stared at his phone, waiting for her to call again. He fidgeted. His instinct told him she wouldn’t call back. She was in trouble.

“Fuck!”

Wasting no time, Trent put on his sneakers and headed for the roof. He jumped from one rooftop to another, racing to the place where he saw her last. He lurched from the gutter and jumped down the sidewalk without too much noise. When he decided to stop stalking her, she was under this balcony, crying. He paced around trying to get a fix on her scent. It was there, but only faintly. In a city this big, a person’s scent could easily be corrupted by others, not to mention the smell of the city itself. The warm weather didn’t help either. A dozen yards away, he caught the stench of someone who had just urinated in a bush. Ugh. Trent wanted to kill that person. Stalking someone via scent was easy to do when the person was around. Stalking that person’s after-scent in the city was damn-near impossible.

He was torn.

This whole business would be easier had she gotten lost in the woods or a remote place that wasn’t populated with many humans. Which way did she go? Forward or backward? He read somewhere that a person was psychologically inclined to go in the direction of one’s dominant hand. Arielle was a righty. Forward, then.

He rushed ahead while he tried harder to keep hold of her scent. If he could just transform into his alter animal, his sense of smell would sharpen tremendously. Damn. Bad timing. At this hour, cars and the occasional pedestrian were already lining the street. He couldn’t just shift willy-nilly.

In the meantime, her scent had begun to fade until he couldn’t smell it at all. Did she take this street? She called him from a pay phone. He scanned his surroundings for one, but he didn’t see any. She didn’t call from this area. Far further. He was already home for half an hour when he received her call.

He should return to his starting point and check other streets, but time was of the essence. He couldn’t waste any more of it.

Grinding his teeth, he grabbed his phone and dialed Quinn’s number. His brother was going to be pissed at him for calling this early, but it was an emergency. After the third ring, Quinn finally answered.

“Quinn,” Trent growled urgently. “I need your help.”

~~~

Arielle sat in a daze in the back seat of a car, wondering if what had happened in the past ten minutes was real.

She was being kidnapped.

Two scary-looking guys had grabbed her and wrestled her into a dark sedan. She had been stunned, so she didn’t put up too much of a fight. That was just great. Reality was different than TV. She should be kicking and screaming, but instead, she was as meek as a lamb being led to the slaughter. Her hands were cold. Her knees were weak. If she were forced to stand, she’d collapse from fright.

Why? Why have these men kidnapped me? What did I do that was so bad, someone wanted revenge?

The answer came from nowhere, hitting her straight between the eyes.

Why, of course. Who did I piss off recently?

Frank Darbo.

I’ll get that bitch one way or another, he had said.

Damn. She guessed he wasn’t just braying an empty threat, that slimy bastard. She didn’t think he was the kind of guy who’d follow through, though.