Second Nature (4 page)

“And?” Sariah circled her hand, her
expression hard.

I picked at the chipping polish on my
toenails and chewed my lip before meeting Xander’s gaze. “And I
threw him out.” Though I waited for a reaction, I got none. They
kept looking at me, not letting me off without more details. “He
tried to hand me some bull about being too young and being scared.
But damn it, it scares me too, and I’m not running away. He tried
to tell me to have patience with him, and I guess I just lost it. I
told him I didn’t care if it killed me, but he needed to go. I said
he shouldn’t show his face here unless he was ready to try to
figure it out together.”

This time I could see the flames in Xander’s
eyes, sunlight or no. They overtook the whites of his eyes until
there was nothing but blue flames where his eyes should be. I
cringed, but he turned and walked away. I hopped up and followed
him as he stalked through the house and grabbed his keys. Terrified
of what he would do, I ran after him, sliding in the Mustang as he
started it.

“Get out!” Xander’s bellow echoed back, but
I stood my ground.

“No!” I refused to cringe, even though his
anger scared me more than a little.

“You don’t want to come with me.”

“I have to, Xan.” I touched his arm gently.
“I have to make sure you come back.” I put my seat belt on and
turned back to him. “Let’s go.”

He drove through Greensboro with a
single-mindedness that made me suspicious. Had Xander known Nate
was here and not told me? How had I not sensed him? I held onto the
door handle praying my brother was calm enough to obey the traffic
laws. A dim awareness of Nate began to grow, confirming my
suspicions. Before I knew it, we pulled up in front of a ratty
apartment complex on the opposite end of Greensboro. I guess it
explained why I hadn’t known he was near, he stayed as far away as
he could while still in the same town.

I started to climb out of the car, but
Xander just gave me a hard look. “Stay here, Amelia.”

Yeah, right, like that’s gonna work!
I waited until I saw what apartment he went to before I calmly
followed. I pressed my back against the wall as the front door
banged against the wall and bounced back against something solid,
presumably Xander. I crept along until I stood just outside the
door; Nate would know I was there, but I hoped my brother wouldn’t.
My heart pounded, and I was terrified of what he would do.
Something crashed against the wall and the sensation of pain–not
mine–told me my mate had just been slammed against a wall by one
pissed off Djinn.

“Dude, what did I tell you?” I barely
recognized my brother’s cold angry voice. “You knew the only reason
I let things happen with my sister is Mom told me I didn’t have a
choice. But I’m done watching her hurt over you. I’m sick of the
haunted look in her eye, of watching her wilt because you’re too
much of a jerk to own up to your mistakes.” I could hear strangled
speech and could almost picture them, Xander’s hand locked on
Nate’s throat. I could feel it, hard enough to hurt, slowly cutting
off his oxygen. I stood in the doorway so I could see. If my
brother killed Nate before we figured out a way to free me from the
bond, I was a goner. I had already saved Nate once, and it nearly
killed my siblings to do it. Despite the rotten way he had treated
me for the last year, I didn’t want anything to happen to him.

Nate’s eyes flicked to me, then back at
Xander. No matter how hurt and angry I was, I had to keep my
brother from killing him. “Easy, Xander,” I said, placing my hand
on his iron hard one. “He dies, I die. You can hurt him if you
must, but he can’t die.”

Xander didn’t respond to me, but his hand
opened dumping Nate on the floor. He laid clutching his throat and
gasping. Judging by the dizziness, it had gotten pretty close
there. I tried to stomp down the sympathy for him. I didn’t
understand what his problem was, and frankly, I was sick of trying
to figure it out. “Now let’s go, Xander. You should let me deal
with him”

Xander ignored me and stared at Nate, his
eyes burning with those eerie blue flames. He shook my hand off and
turned away. Nate struggled to his feet and gave me a grim look. I
shrugged and tried to pack all my helplessness into my eyes. The
situation was so far out of my control. I was afraid he would blame
me for my brother’s brutal attack. Nate grimaced, but he met my
eyes and nodded. I could feel him mentally squaring his shoulders
for a beating he had earned. He didn’t have long to wait because at
that moment Xander spun around, leading with his fist.

I should have known it was a mistake for me
to come up here long before I felt the blow to Nate’s eye. Pain
exploded in my head, and I fell to my knees holding my face. But
the blows kept coming. This close I couldn’t keep Nate’s emotions
out of my head, so all I could so was curl into the fetal position
and whimper. A strange protectiveness surged in him, and then pain
in his fist as he scuffled with my brother. Even as the fire in my
face and side intensified, I respected them for fighting like men
and not using their abilities. That have could turned the situation
deadly serious. I have no idea how long it continued, but Nate’s
yell cut through the red haze. “Dude, beat me later when Amelia’s
isn’t here. Don’t punish her too. She feels every blow!”

There was a surrealistic silence as their
eyes locked on me. I tried to raise my head, but there was so much
pain, I just fell back. Arms wrapped around me, and hands smoothed
my hair back from my face. Someone scooped me into his arms and
whispered apologies in my brother’s voice. I was carried a step
before he stopped and turned back. “Stay away from us, Nate.”
Xander’s voice was hard and unforgiving. “Next time, I’ll make sure
she stays home. The bond can’t protect you forever.” He paused, the
air huffing out of him. “You know what pisses me off the most about
all this? Despite what you’ve done to her, she still loves you.
Hell if you’ve shown
me
you’re worth it.”

He carried me downstairs to the car, where I
was gently laid in the backseat. Slamming the door harder than
necessary, he hurried around the car and climbed behind the wheel.
The engine purred to life, and he squalled the tires as he pulled
out of the parking lot. The further we got from the apartment, the
better I felt. After about a mile I was able to sit up and even
move around a little. By the time we got home, I had crawled into
the front seat and sat next to my brother. Once he pulled into the
driveway and put the car into park, he wrapped me in his arms.

“I’m so sorry, Lia, I had no idea how much
you two shared.”

“I know.” I said, quietly extracting myself
and opening the door.

Xander grabbed my arm and stopped me. “Has
it always been like that?”

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell where I end and
he begins when we’re together. Everything snowballs and gets all
out of control.”

“I can imagine that being a little scary,
but it’s no excuse for him to do what he did to you. He knew how
much you were hurting. He can feel it, can’t he?” I nodded
miserably. “So that bastard knew what he did to you, and he did it
anyway?”

“I guess it’s not all his fault.” My voice
was quiet, but the blame didn’t all fall on Nate. “I’m pretty good
at walling it off sometimes. But yeah, I think he had to have
known.”

Xander’s angular jaw set in a hard line, and
the blue took over his eyes for a moment before he got his temper
under control again. He got out of the car stiffly and headed into
the house. I had no choice but to trail after him. He turned back
to me when I closed the door.

“I want to know everything, Lia. Seriously,
what exactly is going on?”

I shrugged. If I couldn’t figure out what
was happening between us, how could I explain it? I started with
being electrocuted my first day of high school. I explained the
weirdness on Halloween when Nate figured out I had started my
change early but didn’t feel the need to tell anyone. I told him
about bonding in the gardens. Finally, I explained the fight today.
“He said the way he felt I was only girl in the world scared him,
and we were too young to be married. I told him we weren’t human,
and he had to stop thinking like one.” I shrugged again, then
looked down miserably. “He still wouldn’t accept it, so I kicked
him out.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about all this
before?”

I gaped at him. “He’s your best friend.”

“Promise me no matter what, you’ll tell me
about this stuff in the future, Lia. I can’t protect you if I don’t
know everything.”

I placed my hand on his cheek and stared at
him. “Like you told me you knew Nate was in town?”

“I didn’t know he was in town,” Xander said,
crossing his arms and refusing to meet my eyes. “I wouldn’t keep
something like that from you.”

“You definitely aren’t ready for world
championship poker, Xander. You’re a crappy liar.” My brother had
always been sneaky, but I’d never seen him lie. “Why didn’t you
tell me Nate was in town and you knew where he was?”

“I wanted to give him some time to get
himself together.” Xander sighed and deflated. “It’s been hard on
me too. I’m your brother and I want to protect you, but I also want
to stand beside my friend. Lia, the way he’s been treating you, I
don’t even understand as a guy. He came by the other day while you
were at work to talk to me. I told him any excuses he had for you
better be good cause he was only getting one shot.”

Despite my brother’s meddling, Nate had
still been a jerk. I didn’t understand because he had never been
like this before we bonded. “You can’t protect me from everything,
Xander. Sometimes I have to do my own thing. I love you and there’s
no way I would still be alive without you, but you need to stay out
of things between Nate and me. This is my problem to deal
with.”

Xander pouted. He didn’t like it, but I
wasn’t the only one with secrets. I pointed out he had known where
Nate was today, and he grimaced. He spent a long time staring at me
then he nodded grudgingly. Some things a girl just has to deal with
herself.

I HAD TO talk to Nate alone, and I wasn’t
looking forward to it. He had to know what happened was against my
wishes. If he decided to be with me in the end, I didn’t want it to
be because he was afraid of my brother. Knowing our meeting needed
to be on neutral ground, I decided we should meet at the picnic
shelter in Hester Park, a large forested area on a lake not too far
from my house.

I got there first and sat on one of the
picnic tables waiting for him. My arms hugged my chest, sadness and
nervousness at war inside me. My lower lip trembled, and I captured
it in my teeth to keep it still. His familiar car pulled into the
large parking lot. He climbed out, staring over the water as he
hitched his pants up in a lame attempt to delay the confrontation a
moment longer and annoy me.
Just get over here!
I pushed all
my impatience into the bond with the thought. He jumped, startled,
and his head whipped around toward me. He grimaced, then
deliberately turned back to study the lake a moment longer. Yeah,
this was off to a great start.

Finally through stalling, Nate scrubbed a
hand through his hair and came over toward me. His eyes darted
around the park. He stopped at the entrance to the pavilion but
didn’t come over to me. He wrapped an arm around a support beam,
and we sat there in silence. I refused to say a word until he met
my eyes, and he stubbornly stared at the floor. In the end, I won,
and he grudgingly gave in. His eyes were blank, but I could feel
reluctance and wariness in him, not that I blamed him. We heal
faster than humans do, but it still takes a day or two. His eye was
red and puffy, so swollen he could barely open it, one of his ribs
was broken and there was a small dislocated bone in his hand. Most
of his soft tissue had mottled purple and yellow bruises. Xander
hadn’t been pulling punches.

“Would you like me to heal you?”

Nate shrugged, but the indifference was a
front. I don’t know why he even tried it when he had to know I
could feel the truth through the bond we shared. He earned his
lumps and wore them as a visible reminder.

I shook my head, but didn’t push the
issue.

“So what do you want to talk about?” he
asked, looking away from me again.

I scoffed, spreading my hands in disgust.
“Oh, I don’t know. The weather? The price of tea in China? Or maybe
the elephant in the room should be a priority.” I bit my tongue to
keep more sarcasm from pouring out of me like venom. I hadn’t
realized how much bitterness I harbored until I started to let it
out, and now I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to hold it back.
Wasn’t sure if I wanted to.

“Do we have anything left to say?” he asked
with a shrug.