Prim and Proper Fate (Twisted Fate Series Book 2) (8 page)

William was the only Fate he even remotely respected, because William stuck around, even after Sydney mated with Gavin. And William was still determined to protect Sydney, despite the fact that she was mated to the strongest shifter known in the world. Brandon couldn’t help but respect him for that.

But not Prim. She’d abandoned Brandon’s mother, and the myriad other Chala she’d let die over the years. He almost felt like she deserved whatever the hell was going wrong in her head. Almost. In reality, no one deserved such a terrible fate. To be forced to give up your life’s work because that very work had fucked up your mind . . . It really wasn’t fair. But still, Prim should’ve tried harder. Something, anything. She should’ve figured out that stupid curse sooner. Then there’d be a bunch of cursed Rakshasa running around, but that was better than having only a single Chala left in the world.

He picked up the scent on his third trip around the building. Rakshasa. And magnolias.

Magnolias?

“Prim?” he called out uncertainly, as he scanned the area, searching for both the Fate and the source of the Rakshasa scent.

“Over here,” he heard her call out.

He turned, and spotted her with her back pressed against the wall behind a newspaper box near the motel lobby. She pointed, and Brandon saw the pickup truck parked under the canopy stretching over the entrance to the motel. He skirted around the entrance until he came up next to Prim. She wasn’t wearing the red nightie–thank the Fates–but she was wearing the dress she’d shed earlier. Despite the fact that she’d likely hastily thrown it on in order to come outside, she still looked damn good in it.

Brandon shook his head and spoke to her in an irritated whisper. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

“I sensed Rakshasa. William’s barricaded in the room with Sydney.” She held up a cell phone. “One call from me, and they’ll run.”

“You sensed the Rakshasa?” Brandon repeated, sounding shocked. Hell, he’d just picked up the scent a few minutes ago. Prim had obviously figured it out with enough time to wake up and get dressed. She’d brushed her teeth too, he noticed, as the scent of mint trailed past his nose. What the hell?

Prim delicately shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve always been good at sensing danger well before it happened. It’s one of the things that makes me such a good Fate.”

Brandon stared at her. “If you’re so damn good at it, how the hell did you lose so many Chala?” The instant he said it, he wished he could take it back. He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings, not this time.

“Until Gavin came along,” she said stiffly, “the only time I lost Chala were to their mates. And my control is vastly reduced once they take a mate. I used to fight it, in the beginning, because I always believed a Chala should have both a Fate and a mate, since they are such valuable beings. But the First and I did not see eye to eye on this particular subject.” She pursed her lips, and Brandon felt an unusual flood of appreciation for all the woman had gone through in her life. She’d loved and lost, a hundred times over, and had fought the system every step of the way. No wonder she was going crazy. Doing that for thousands of years would make anyone loony.

“Sorry,” he said, surprising himself by apologizing. “I didn’t realize.”

Prim waved off his apology and nodded toward the lobby, where two men stood at the registration desk, clearly arguing with the lone clerk on duty. “Do you think this is a coincidence, or has Gavin already figured out where we are?”

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Brandon said. “But I also don’t think Gavin would send someone else after us, unless these guys are just scouting, and are supposed to report back to him if they find us. Trust me, when Gavin comes after us, it’ll be him, and probably just him.”

“You say ‘when’ as if you fully expect him to do so.”

“I’m counting on it, actually. How else are we going to find him? Tomorrow we’re going to get on a plane and fly to Detroit, because that’s the most logical place he’ll go, at least to regroup initially. But as soon as that curse is fully gone, you can bet your hot little ass that priority number one in his mind will be to find Sydney. I’d like us to find him first, because then it won’t be a surprise, and it will be on our terms, but I’m prepared, either way. And you should be, too. Are you confident in your abilities to repeat that curse yet?”

Before Prim could answer, the two shifters stormed out of the motel lobby, clearly furious. Brandon listened as they bitched about the clerk refusing to give them a room, and then they decided to drive into New Orleans to stalk the streets, looking for human prey. In the process of climbing into the truck, the driver froze and sharply turned his head. Brandon followed his line of his vision to the car where the overzealous couple were still making out, oblivious to the rest of the world. The woman had climbed into the man’s lap, and his hands were under the hem of her shirt. Brandon couldn’t see the woman’s hands, but he had a pretty damn good idea where they currently roamed.

“Shit,” he muttered as he watched the two shifters motion to one another and then head in the direction of the heated couple. “Stay here,” he ordered Prim, and then he slipped away from the building, skirting around so he could come up behind the two shifters. He took one down before he reached the car, but the other shifted into animal form and took off like a shot. Brandon shifted as well and took off after him. He caught the guy in a nearby copse of trees, and made quick work of breaking his neck and then setting the body on fire, as was the customary way to dispose of dead shifters.

When he returned to the motel, the couple in the car were gone, and he found Prim, not where he’d told her to stay, but instead bent over the front seat of the Rakshasa’s truck, her fucking perfect ass sticking in the air, wiggling every so often as she moved about, apparently searching the cab. He came to a screeching halt and stared, while his cock gave a jerk and all but begged him to walk up behind her, lift that skirt, and ram into her until they were both sated.

Holy fuck, what the hell is wrong with me?

“Brandon? Hello? Brandon? Little help, please. I think that clerk is starting to get suspicious.”

Brandon came back to reality with a jolt when Prim called his name. She glanced at him over her shoulder, an impatient look on her face.

“What are you doing?” he managed to ask, adjusting his swollen cock when she turned her focus back to the truck. “Prim, get the hell out of that truck.”
Or at least sit down in the fucking seat, so I don’t have to stare at your ass anymore
.

Prim straightened and shoved something into his chest. He automatically reached up and grabbed it, as she slammed the door and headed toward the dead shifter, still lying next to the amorous couple’s car. A moan, followed by a sudden shriek, could be heard through the door of what he suspected was the couple’s motel room. Apparently they hadn’t let a little thing like a Rakshasa attack interfere with their evening plans.

Lucky bastards.

“Don’t you need to do something about this?” Prim asked, nodding at the dead body.

Brandon grunted, annoyed that she’d distracted him enough he almost forgot to eliminate the evidence of the kill. If the police were called, they wouldn’t be able to trace the body back to him, since shifter DNA didn’t register in the humans’ databases, but it was always messy when human law enforcement came across a dead shifter. Their blood didn’t register, either, and suspicions of alien activity inevitably resulted whenever a lab or hospital got a hold of the body.

By the time he’d dragged the body over to the same place where he’d killed the second shifter and then set it on fire, Prim had drawn her own conclusions about the presence of two shifters in their vicinity. “They’re from Texas,” she said, when Brandon returned to her side, now covered in soot as well as dried blood and dirt. It was a good thing that whatever humans were left wandering about were too inebriated to notice.

“You look a mess,” she commented. “Are you injured?”

Brandon scowled. “Thanks for your belated concern. I’m fine. Just a few scratches. How do you know they’re from Texas?”

She held up the map she’d handed him earlier. “Two maps. One of Texas, one of Louisiana. And the plates on the truck are Texas plates. It really was a coincidence.”

Brandon strode toward their hotel room. He needed another shower. And now his muscles would be sore as well as tense. He couldn’t fucking win tonight.

“I suppose I should mention I’ve lived in Texas for the past hundred years, until I joined Gavin and Sydney’s pack.”

“You think they were after you?” She sounded surprised.

Brandon shrugged. “Possibly. About a month ago, I hired a pack of Rakshasa from Texas to kidnap Gavin for me, so I could kill him.” At her sharp intake of breath, he added, “That was before I trusted him, which I do now. Explicitly. At least, I do when he’s cursed. It’s possible Gavin has now gone back to them and told them to hunt me down instead.”

“How would he know to send them to New Orleans?”

“Either he senses Sydney or he went to the pack back at Killian’s house and figured out we flew into New Orleans before hopping on that charter plane and heading to your island. Either way, we can’t eliminate the possibility that Gavin knows where we are.”

He reached into his back pocket to pull out the key card that would let them into the motel room, but the door was jerked open before he could use it.

“Oh, thank the Fates, you’re both okay!” William grabbed one of Brandon’s and one of Prim’s wrists and dragged them both inside. “What was it? What happened? Did you find Gavin?” He looked behind them, as if he expected Gavin to materialize on the threshold.

Brandon shook off his hand and strode through the room. “No Gavin. Just two Rakshasa from Texas. They’re dead, but it’s time to go anyway. I’m not taking the chance that they were the only ones.” Besides, this eliminated the need to sleep in the same bed as Prim. His grudging respect was only causing his attraction to grow.

Not good. Definitely not good.

William and Sydney, he was relieved to see, were already a step ahead of him. Four duffle bags and Prim’s massive amount of matching Italian leather luggage sat in a pile by the door.

“Did you remember my body wash?” Prim asked.

Brandon certainly hoped so. He was growing fond of the scent of magnolias.

Chapter 6

Since the two dead shifters no longer had a use for it, Prim and crew decided to use their truck as transportation rather than try to track down a rental car in the middle of the night. It was a newer model, extended cab pickup truck and proved to be a relatively comfortable ride. Brandon drove for the first leg, and William sat in the passenger seat, while Sydney and Prim vegged out in the backseat.

By the time he stopped for gas the first time, everyone else in the truck was asleep. Prim woke when he returned from having grabbed a snack in the attached convenience store.

“I have to use the restroom,” she said, and then she slipped out of the truck and hurried away from the gas pumps.

When she returned, he asked, “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in jeans or sweats or something?”

Prim looked down at her wrinkled dress and then climbed into the extended cab. “I don’t own jeans or sweats.” There was literally nothing in her wardrobe that would be comfortable enough for the extensive amount of traveling Brandon had planned.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Is it really necessary to say an explicative every single time you open your mouth?” Stress, worry, and lack of sleep had frayed her nerves, causing her to be more vocal about her displeasure than she would be otherwise. She had suffered through that appalling motel room, but she could no longer suffer his rude speech in silence.

“No, it’s not necessary,” Brandon said in a mocking tone. “But it sure as hell makes me feel better. It’s stress relief. Don’t have any other kind of stress relief at the moment.”

“I wouldn’t think someone like you would let stress affect you so much.”

“Someone like me? What’s that mean?”

“Nothing.” She wasn’t about to tell him that by ‘someone like him’ she meant someone who was strong and powerful and always seemed to take up far too much space in a room. Or in a truck. His presence was like a giant elephant, smothering her; practically sitting on her.

No, that wasn’t quite the right analogy. He was more of a . . . lion. Big. Predatory. Dominate. Sleek. Powerful . . .

“It’s my back,” he admitted, dragging Prim from her fantasy.

“W-What?”

Brandon sighed. “My back. It gets tight sometimes. Muscle spasms, caused by stress. Right now they’re just knots, but if I don’t find a masseuse soon, I’ll be in a lot of pain.”

“I give good backrubs,” Prim blurted, unable to stop herself.

Brandon looked at her in the rearview mirror. She looked back at him. They were silent for a few moments, as he drove down the highway.

“I can probably at least get to your shoulders, from here,” Prim offered politely. She was sitting directly behind the driver’s seat. It would be easy to massage his shoulders from this vantage point.

“You don’t have to.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Fine,” he grumbled.

Prim hesitated, and then leaned forward. She grasped his shoulders, digging her fingers into his muscles. “You
are
tight,” she murmured. He made a strangled noise and she froze. “Did I hurt you?”

“Not hardly,” he said, his voice much higher pitched than normal. He cleared his throat. “It . . . That was nice. It-It feels better already.”

Spurred by his honest admission, Prim resumed her massage, working out the kinks and knots one by one. Her hands were cramped and her wrists were sore when she finally stopped, but she was reasonably certain she’d gotten out the worst of the knots.

“You’re right. Your shoulders were nothing but knots.”

“Not anymore,” he commented with a contented sigh. “I feel fu– Er, I feel great.”

Prim couldn’t help her self-satisfied smile.

By the time Brandon determined he couldn’t drive any longer, the sun was pushing over the horizon, Prim had fallen back asleep, and they were in Tennessee.

“Where are we?” William asked with a wide yawn, when Brandon stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant.

“Memphis. We still have about a fourteen-hour drive ahead of us. I suggest we get to Nashville and catch a flight from there. My back is killing me. Well, my lower back anyway,” he said with a wink in Prim’s direction.

Four hours later, Sydney was at the wheel, guiding the truck into the long-term parking lot at the Nashville Airport.

“It’ll take someone longer to notice no one is claiming it here,” Brandon explained as he climbed out of the truck and stretched. “Damn. I wish I could find someplace where I could get horizontal so you could massage the rest of my back,” he said to Prim, and felt an odd sort of thrill when she blushed. He pushed away the sensation and reached into the back of the truck and began pulling out luggage.

Prim had a stash of credit cards she had told him she used whenever she came to the mainland, whereas Brandon only carried cash. He refused to let either Sydney or William use their credit cards. He didn’t want to make it any easier for Gavin to track them.

“He’s plenty smart enough that if he has the resources, he’s watching for activity on your account, Sydney.”

Sydney, with her lack of sleep and lack of spending time with her mate, had begun to get annoyed with Brandon’s assumption that Gavin would do whatever it took to get to her and kill her.

“Even without the curse, he wouldn’t kill me,” she insisted.

“What happened in the last two days that you aren’t telling me?” Brandon demanded. “Because when we left Louisiana, you were just as convinced as I was that he’d come after you and kill you. What happened? Did he call? Did he send you a note? Well?”

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Prim reprimanded him. Brandon blinked. Had Prim just defended Sydney? When the hell had they become buddy-buddy?

“I just can’t believe he’d really kill me, that’s all,” Sydney said, sounding petulant. “I mean, I know he’s a Rakshasa now, but he loves me. Won’t that override his Rakshasa sensibilities?”

“If he was cursed, yes,” Prim replied. “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Sydney, but the only reason he was even able to love you was because of the curse. Gavin Rowan, the uncursed Gavin, does not love you. He doesn’t understand love. To their species, it does not exist.”

“That was pretty damn heartless,” Brandon commented a little while later, as they lounged in the seating area outside their gate and waited for their flight. Sydney and William had gone to use the nearby restrooms and to scope out the nearest storefronts for snacks. Brandon and Prim had both agreed a short time ago that there were no Rakshasa present in the airport, so for the moment, they were all safe.

“I didn’t mean for it to be,” Prim said. “But it’s the truth. And she needs to understand the truth. Otherwise she’s apt to do something foolish that could get her killed. And just so you know, if she dies, I’m not cursing Gavin. It would kill him for sure to be cursed and realize he killed the woman he loves.”

“If he kills her, I’ll kill him,” Brandon replied. He meant it.

The next available flight they’d all been able to get on was scheduled to leave in three hours. Brandon paced restlessly, while the other three settled in, reading books or watching the news on the series of televisions mounted to the ceiling in the waiting area.

“He’s in Detroit.” William pointed at the screen, where a grim-looking reporter covered a story about a double-homicide with no leads, no witnesses, and no motive. Another unsolvable case, and just when Detroit’s crime rate had started to decline.

“You don’t know that,” Sydney insisted. No one bothered to contradict her.

“Please sit down,” Prim complained to Brandon. “You remind me of a caged animal, pacing like that.”

“It’s not an inaccurate description,” Brandon pointed out. “It’s my back. When I sit down, it hurts like hell. And I’m going to be sitting in a too-small seat for two hours when I get on that plane. I’d rather put off the inevitable, if I can.”

“Why don’t you take an aspirin or something?”

“My metabolism is too high. The pain goes away for about thirty minutes, and then the medicine’s through my system. And if I keep taking it, I’ll end up with stomach ulcers.”

“Oh, for the love of Fates. Come here.” She motioned at him and then pointed at seat next to her. “Sit down. I’ll work the kinks out of your lower back.”

Brandon hesitated, because he knew the second her hands touched his body, he’d have a hard-on the size of a baseball bat in his lap. Okay, maybe it wouldn’t quite be that big, but it sure as hell would feel like it.

But the thought of how good his shoulders had felt after she’d worked out the kinks earlier had him obediently sitting down next to her on the row of armless, attached seats. Turning to the side, he showed her his back and faced William, who sat on his other side. Spotting that Fate’s neck pillow, he grabbed it and stuffed it into his lap and then glared at William, daring him to try to take it back. William didn’t move.

Prim had magical hands. Brandon closed his eyes and let the sensations flow through his body. Erotic, to be sure, and he wanted nothing more than to drag her into his lap and fuck her until they were both exhausted, but it was so much more than that. She knew exactly what to do, exactly which knots needed the most attention. She used her fingers and the heel of her hand and even at one point, her elbow, as she worked every single knot and kink out of his back.

When she was done, his back felt great, and his groin and his head both felt as if they were about to explode.

He twisted around and leaned back against the seat, sighing. “I don’t suppose you want to find a secluded corner and join the Mile High Club really quick, do you?”

Prim blinked. “Er . . . Don’t you have to be in an airplane for it to be considered the Mile High Club?”

“I’m not sure I can wait that long. I feel like I’m about to explode. Your backrubs are the greatest form of foreplay ever.”

“I wasn’t trying to turn you on,” Prim said stiffly. “I was trying to help. You said your back hurt. I knew a backrub would help. That’s it.”

“Oh, please. You’ve been eyeing me since I stepped off that boat on your island,” Brandon taunted. “And I’ve decided that I’m okay with the fact that you’re a Fate. You’re still doable. I can overlook that flaw.”

Prim slapped him. “Don’t ever ask me for another backrub again,” she snapped, and then she stood and strode across the waiting area, to sit as far from him as she possibly could, and still be able to hear the summons when their flight was announced.

He supposed he deserved that. Damn it.

“Trouble in paradise?” William asked several hours later, when they were seated on the plane and waiting for takeoff. As soon as they boarded, Prim had offered to swap seats with someone in the very rear of the plane. In an act of feminine solidarity, Sydney had followed suit, leaving the two men to sit alone in business class. To make matters worse, Brandon knew damn well every person on that plane thought he and William were an item, considering the fact that William was wearing an obnoxious flower-print dress, his favorite curly blond wig, and the ever-present hot pink lipstick.

“Trouble should have stayed in paradise,” Brandon grumbled. “I’m starting to think we would have been better off doing this by ourselves.”

“Prim is a difficult woman to appreciate,” William said wisely.

“I appreciate her just fine. That’s the problem. And I could’ve sworn the feeling was mutual.”

William lifted his painted-on eyebrows and regarded Brandon with polite disbelief. “I was under the impression you weren’t particularly fond of Fates. Especially Prim. Wasn’t she your mother’s Fate?”

“Yeah.”

“I assume your widespread disrespect for our kind is a direct result of the fact that your mother was killed, and Prim was unable to save her.”

“Indirect, actually. I was too young when it happened to even remember it. But I lived with my aunt and she made sure I understood. She was a pretty bitter woman.”

“Do you truly believe we are to blame for the deaths of the Chala over the years?”

Brandon blew out a sigh. “I don’t know what to believe. I used to think it was Gavin, until I got to know him. Then I convinced myself it was you all. Now I’m beginning to doubt that. My head’s so fucked up right now, I can hardly think straight.”

“It’s really quite black and white,” William said. “The Rakshasa are to blame. We do everything we can, but sometimes it isn’t enough. And if they did not exist, then our Chala would almost certainly not die.”

“Thanks for the history lesson,” Brandon grumbled as the flight attendant walked by and asked if they’d like a drink. William ordered a glass of wine. Brandon asked for a beer. After she walked away to retrieve their drinks, William asked what he did to upset Prim.

“What makes you think I did something?” Brandon asked defensively.

William rolled his eyes. “I saw her fixing your back, and the look of utter bliss on your face. And then you opened your mouth and now she and Sydney are sitting far too far away for us to be effective should there be a Rakshasa attack while we are up in the air.”

Brandon gave a little jerk and nearly caused the flight attendant to spill the drinks she had been about to place in front of them. But then he forced himself to relax. There weren’t any Rakshasa on this flight. Brandon would have known if there were. For that matter, so would William, Prim, and even Sydney. They all had the ability to sense them, to some extent, and they were in far too close quarters not to be fully aware.

“I thought we had the same thing in mind,” Brandon grumbled as he took a swig of beer.

William sipped his wine and watched the shifter for a moment. Then, very deliberately, he said, “There is a vast difference between fucking and making love. And if you do not understand that, then I fully support Prim’s decision to keep you at arm’s length.”