Outsider (Outsider Series) (27 page)

I covered the words with my hands. “I don’t need this to remind me of it Caeden. It will be in my mind
forever
. This is just a flesh reminder. But I have to move on. I can’t let this break me because that’s what they want. I
won’t
give them that satisfaction.”

He pulled me to him and kissed me. “You’re so much stronger than I give you credit for.
”

I smiled and leaned against his chest. The steady beating of his heart comforted me. It was so strong, just like him.
It’s
steady rhythm began to lull me to sleep. He pulled the quilt and sheet back and tucked me under it and then pulled me against his chest. He kissed my ear and fingered my hair. “Sleep now. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Promise?” I asked fighting my heavy eyelids.

I could feel his smile. “Promise,” he said. “I love you,” he whispered.

“Love you more,” I said and then fell asleep to his soft laugh filling my ear.

* * *

When I opened my eyes Caeden’s soft snore filled my ear. A smile plucked at my lips. His arms were wrapped around me and he had me cocooned in his arms like I was some kind of precious childhood teddy bear. I wiggled in his arms so that I could face him. I didn’t want to waste this time. I wanted to take in his beautiful, peaceful, face uninterrupted.

I traced his perfectly arched brow, smoothing the chaotic hairs there. Next I moved to his straight and defined aristocratic nose. It was perfectly proportioned to his face and didn’t compete with his strong chin
and jaw
. His lips were sinful. They looked like an ancient sculptor had chiseled them from marble. But instead of cold and immobile they were warm and itinerant. His cheekbones were perfectly sculpted and strong. They contrasted nicely with the dusting of dark brown scruff that always covered his face. I put my hand against his cheek relishing in the way
the prickly hairs felt against the soft skin of the palm of my hand. In his sleep, his lips flickered into a smile.

A minimal amount of light sifted in through the closed blinds. I guessed it was a little after seven in the morning.
I knew after what I had been through I should still be exhausted but I wasn’t. Instead I felt remarkably energized. I figured it was a combination of Caeden healing me and then just sleeping with him. I had felt similar the night we had slept on the couch together. We were more compatible than I had even imagined. I mean, who knew that just sleeping in the same bed as someone could make you feel this good. It seemed impossible.

I watched him sleep peacefully for a couple more minutes and then he began to stir. His eyes slowly blinked open and he smiled when he saw me watching him. He pulled
me
closer to him and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Morning beautiful,” he said. His blue eyes captured mine and I found myself drowning in their endless depths.

“Morning,” I smiled.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Starved,” I replied with a giggle as my stomach began to growl obnoxiously.

He chuckled and sat up. His hair was delightfully ruffled on the side like a birds feathers.
He stretched his arms, yawned, and climbed out of bed. “I’ll make you breakfast,” he said taking my small hands in his larger ones and pulling me from the bed against his chest.

“You can cook?” I asked skeptical.

“Are you dissing my mad cooking skills? I make a mean cupcake and you know it,” he grinned.

“What’s with all the angry words?” I joked. “Mad? Mean?”

He pouted his full bottom lip. “Don’t mock me,” he jested.

“Alright, so prove it to me that you can make something besides a cupcake,” I said sticking my hip out and placing my hand on it.

“I will
,” he said, “and your taste bu
ds will explode with pleasure.”

We trotted quietly down the stairs so as not to wake anybody. Once in the kitchen he made me sit down on one of the stools while he cooked. He put on his mother’s flowery apron and I had to admit that he could pull it off. He pulled out the makings for an omelet and hash browns and set to work.
He had to keep brushing his shaggy hair out of his face. “Guess it’s time for a cut,” he commented.

I rested my face on my hand and said, “I like it like this.”

He grinned. “Maybe I won’t take too much off. Deal?” he said with a wink. Then he added, “I absolutely despise getting my haircut. It’s akin to torture.”

I laughed. “Don’t talk to me about torture,” I joked.

His face instantly paled and he dropped an egg on the floor where it splattered. “I’m so sorry, Sophie. That was so thoughtless of me. Please forgive me. I wasn’t thinking. I was being stupid.
I can’t believe I said that. It was extremely callous of me. I feel horrible.” He enveloped me in his arms and soothingly stroked my cheek.

“Caeden, it’s okay,” I said and suddenly I was the one comforting him. “Really, I’m fine. You didn’t mean anything by it and I didn’t take it that way. You were joking around and so was I. My intention was not to make you feel bad,” I said using my finger to smooth his brow.

“I know that,” he said, “but I still should have thought before I opened my big fat mouth. I’m really sorry.”

“Stop saying you’re sorry, please, it just makes me feel worse,” I said into his chest.

“Alright,” he said gently stroking my long hair, “I won’t say anything else about it, today,” he added and I rolled my eyes.

“I’ll clean this up while you cook,” I said pointing to the egg mess that
sprinkled the floor.

He smiled. “Thanks,” he said and I knew he wasn’t just referring to the mess.

I grabbed a paper towel and wetted it, bending down to gather up the mess. I dumped it in the pullout cabinet trashcan that Caeden showed me. He pointed me to some disinfectant and I sprayed it on the floor.

I had just sat back down when Amy padded into the kitchen. She pushed the button on the coffee maker and yawned. “Ya’ll are up early,” she commented. She looked at me appreciatively, “And you got him to make breakfast. He hasn’t made breakfast since he was in middle school and he’s ne
ver up before ten o’ clock when
there’s no school. I’m impressed. Maybe you should move in.”

I laughed. “I’m sure he’d love that,” I said with a smile.

“I would,” he grinned sliding an omelet and some hash browns onto my plate. He fixed a plate, of two omelets and enough hash browns to feed three people, for himself. He then fixed a more decent portioned plate for his mom.

The coffee maker beeped and Amy poured herself a cup. She inhaled
it’s
scent before taking a sip. “I can’t accomplish anything without my coffee,” she said.

Caeden laughed and whispered conspiratorially to me, “She’s a monster without the stuff. You notice how she drinks it black? It’s just like her soul,” he grinned.

“Caeden Henry Williams,” his mother scolded.

He laughed and took a seat at the bar next to me. He shoveled a big bite of egg into his mouth and drenched his hash browns with ketchup. “I only speak the truth,” he said.

Amy laughed at her son and sat down in the empty seat next to him. She took a bite and said, “This is good son.”

“Thanks,” he said taking a sip of orange juice.

Amy leaned over and looked at me quizzically. “You look better,” she said. Her confusion was written plainly on her face.

“Um...” I said nervously. “Caeden healed me.” However, I rubbed self-consciously at the one thing that wouldn’t heal. I could clearly remember the way it felt having that word carved into my skin. I would forever be labeled a liar.

“Oh,” she said and looked between us.

“It’s a mate thing,” said Caeden. “It was mentioned in the legends that mates could heal each other so I decided to try. It worked,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Huh,” said Amy, “that’s pretty cool.”

“Except,” said Caeden, “I couldn’t heal everything.”

I rolled my eyes. Back to this again. “Really?” Amy asked. “What wouldn’t heal?”

I sighed and stretched my arm out to her. She flinched when she saw the word carved maliciously into my arm.
Liar
.

“May I look more closely?” she asked hesitantly.

“Of course,” I said and hopped down from the stool. I came over to stand beside her.

She gently took my arm in her hands. Her fingers hesitantly ran over the savage markings. “He used silver,” she said. “It won’t ever heal. It’ll stay like this forever.
Just like those marks across your chest thanks to Peter Grimm,
” She said
to Caeden as she ran
her hand over the pale white indentations. “Let me guess, you were able to heal it closed and scarred but it wouldn’t heal beyond this?”
she asked Caeden. “Because I’m guessing it looked a whole lot worse than this.”

“Right you are,” said Caeden.

Her
blue eyes darkened to midnight. “They shouldn’t be allowed to be shifters.
To do something like this to fellow man.
It’s sickening. They should be stripped of their powers.”

“Can that happen?” I asked. “Can you take away their power of shifting?”

“No, I wish. They are an absolute insult to everything that shifters stand for. They have tainted our reputation. The Grimm’s have always been bad but now they are beyond evil. They have no humanity left in them. They don’t deserve their gift or their lives. If I ever see them again I will make them pay for this. You didn’t deserve this. Neither one of you,” she said looking between her son and me. “Neither one of you will ever be the same because of this. I can only hope that it makes you stronger. Find comfort in one another’s arms. You both deserve happiness and it frightens me to think about how it was almost lost to you both. But don’t let the bad break you, let it make you. It’s the only way to go on.” Tears pooled in her blue eyes.
She looked between us.

“You never know when your last day together will be,” Amy said and started crying. Her shoulders shook with her grief. “He said he’d be right back like he always was! But he wasn’t! And then your brother found him… Dead. He was dead. I will forever cherish those last moments we had together. I never want you two to take each other for granted.”

“Mom,” said Caeden and I could hear his voice choking on emotion.

“Amy,” I said and hugged her. “It’s okay.”

“Roger and I may not have been mates but I still loved him with all my heart. You never know how long it may last. I know what you went through was beyond horrible, words can’t describe it, but I also saw what it did to Caeden. He was experiencing a completely different kind of pain. I could see the hopelessness in his eyes. He became a stranger to me. I never want to see anyone go through something like that again.” She gently tucked a stray hair behind my ear and then took my hands in hers. “I fear if you hadn’t been found I would’ve lost my son forever. But now you’re here and you’re safe and Caeden is happy again. I never want you to take each other for granted. Never,” she reaffirmed.

“I won’t,” I said. “He’s everything.” Tears leaked out of my eyes. “I thought I’d never get to tell him that I loved him.” I looked at Caeden. “I do. I love you with all my heart. I love you like I never knew it was possible to love another person.” I smiled and made a joke to lessen the emotional heaviness that had settled in the room. “I already almost lost you and now you’ve almost lost me. I think we’re even now. Okay? No more trying to get ourselves killed.”

He laughed and pulled me from his mother’s hold and onto his lap where he sat at the bar. He pressed a kiss to my lips despite his mother being present. He ran his hands through my bird’s nest of hair. “From now on we do everything together. Lucinda’s going to be hard pressed to h
ave me let you out of my sight.”

I laughed as Gram walked in. “Why does everyone insist on talking about me when I’m not present? You’d think I was the Queen of England or something.”

We chuckled as she grabbed a cup of coffee. “Gram, would you like some coffee with your sugar?” I joked.

She clucked her tongue at me. “This is how sane people drink coffee,” she quipped.

“There is nothing wrong with black coffee,” said Amy with a smile.

“You’re right,” said Gram thoughtfully. “There’s something wrong with the drinker’s mind.”

We all laughed and she putte
re
d over to the omelets that
lay
prepared. “This smell’s delicious, Amy,” she said.

“Actually,” said Amy, “Caeden made it.”

Gram turned to glare at Caeden. “If you put something in this that resembles anything besides edible food I will have your head.”

Caeden put his hands up. “Now would I do that?”

“You did make your brother eat worm pie, if I recall,” I said with a smile as I took my seat and continued to eat my breakfast.

Gram laughed and took a plate. “So you can make something other than cupcakes? I’m impressed.” She looked at me and winked, “Sophie, he’s a keeper.”

Since
all the
bar stools were taken Gram took a seat at the kitchen table.