Chasing Shadows(16)

With a grin I jumped to my feet and threw my arms around him, holding him tight for a moment before standing back with what I knew was an ear-to-ear grin. “I was thinking of asking you if you’d like to move into the house with me, but I was afraid it would be too soon to bring it up.”

His smile was identical to mine, though he did sober some and say, “I know a lot of people would think we’re crazy, considering we just met—my mom and sister included, if she were even in the country. But I figure why the heck not, you know? You and I already know that we’re meant to be together, so why delay the inevitable?”

“Why indeed?” I agreed, still smiling hugely and feeling like I was about to burst with happiness.

Mark and I shoved each other back and forth playfully as we dressed, and I had finally pulled my jeans up and was tucking my shirt in when I froze at the sound of feet pounding up the stairs—

—two feet, not four.

Mark went on alert, and though I was definitely older and more than likely stronger than he was, he pushed me behind him as he moved cautiously toward the bedroom door. We heard the apartment door fly open and hit the wall, and I felt my blood drain out of my face as Juliette’s voice rang out, calling her brother’s name.

“Mark! Mark, where are you?” she cried with alarm.

Though he was obviously stunned, Mark ran out into the living room. He stopped short at the sight of his sister standing stark naked in the middle of his apartment.

“Jules? What—how?” he stammered. “And why the hell are you naked?!”

I stepped up beside him and laid my hand on his arm, ignoring the widening of Juliette’s eyes. “Sweetheart, remember me telling you that there was a lot about the supernatural world you needed to learn? Well, she’s one of them.”





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Six





Mark looked between Juliette and me, clearly dumbfounded.

“Why don’t I get something for Juliette to wear, so we can all sit down and talk, hmm?” I suggested.

My new lover turned to me. “You know my sister’s name?”

I smiled, “Mark, you told me her name last night, remember?”

“Then how do you know she’s…?”

Juliette sighed. “Because of this,” she said, dropping down and shifting into animal form before us.

“Whoa!” Mark exclaimed, back-stepping away from the dog who had moments ago been his little sister.

Juliette immediately shifted back into human form and stood with her arms akimbo. “What, you’re okay with her being half a bloodsucker, but your little sister turning into a dog scares you?” she scoffed.

Mark shook his head as if to clear it, then squared his shoulders. “You did not scare me. I just wasn’t…prepared for that,” he said gruffly. I noticed he was no longer looking directly at her, but at a point somewhere over her right shoulder.

“Juliette, why don’t you go canine again until I get some clothes for you to wear,” I suggested a little more firmly. “Then we’ll all go down to the house, sit down at the table like the normal people that none of us really are, and have a nice, long chat.”

The younger woman nodded mutely, shifting once more and trotting back out the door. Mark stared after her for a long moment.

“My sister…is my dog,” he said at last.

I tried not to smile. “Yes, Mark, she is,” I replied calmly.

He turned to me. “You knew about this? How?”

I sighed. “Dhampyr, human-vampire hybrids, can sense other supernatural beings. Just like I knew you were an immortal human when I met you, I knew she was a shapeshifter when I met her. But even without that ability I’d have known she was a shifter just by the way she smells.”

Mark shook his head again, then retreated to the bedroom. I followed, and we both put our socks and shoes on in silence. I led him back out of the apartment, and we found Juliette, still in animal form, waiting for us at the tack room door. She growled impatiently but I ignored her. Truth was she had this coming. If she and her mother had explained things to Mark years ago, like they should have…

I held the screen door open for both of them and they filed inside, stepping carefully past the heavier wooden door that lay on the floor on top of one of the kitchen chairs, which had splintered from the impact. I berated myself silently for not being more careful.

Arthur had made the dining table and chairs for me before he’d been shipped out on that last, fateful tour of duty.

Wordlessly I walked up the stairs to my bedroom, and to my surprise Juliette followed me. Instead of the robe this time, I dug through my drawers for a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt, laying them on the bed and leaving her alone to get dressed, even though I had already seen her naked more than once.

When I had returned to the kitchen, I found that Mark had picked the door up and leaned it against the wall. The broken chair he was just picking up off the floor, and my breath hitched in my throat. Mark looked up at the sound and stood.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

I continued to stare at the wooden pieces of the chair in his hands, before sniffling and wiping at the tears that had begun to fill my eyes. “It’s nothing. It’s ridiculous, because it’s just a chair,” I said.

Mark laid the pieces on the end of the table and came over to me, gathering me in his arms. “Obviously it’s more than just a chair to you. What’s wrong?”

“Arthur was a craftsman when he wasn’t serving the Army. He built the table and chairs for me right before he left,” I said, my voice muffled because I was speaking into his chest.

“And it was his last gift to you, right?” he queried, rubbing my back as he spoke.

I nodded, sniffling to try and stop the tears. Mark kissed the top of my head, then told me, “Saphrona, it’s alright for you to be upset over that. I understand.”

I pulled back and looked up at him. “How can that be? How can you be so sweet and understanding when I’m crying over a man I was married to more than sixty years ago?”

“That was before my time, remember?” he said softly. “Besides, you said he was good to you when you needed someone to love you. I’ve got no grudge against your memories.”

We were reminded that we were not alone when Juliette cleared her throat. I separated from Mark reluctantly. “Sorry about that,” I told her.

“Like he said, I got no grudge against your memories.”

“Are you going to have a grudge against me now that your brother and I are together?” I asked.

She looked at me squarely. “Saphrona, you said he was your bondmate and I believed you. Which means I knew the two of you were going to end up sleeping together—though I admit to not expecting it to happen quite so soon.”

I chanced a smile as I glanced sidelong at Mark. “Neither did we, really. But as I’m sure you know—”

Juliette waved off my words and stepped around us. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. One thing led to another.” She walked over to the back door and raised a hand to finger the splinters where the hinges had torn from the frame.

“What happened here?” she asked over her shoulder.

“I did that when I saw Herugrim standing in the driveway,” I admitted as I stepped around Mark and slipped wearily into one of the three remaining chairs. “I didn’t think Mark would have been so careless as to let him roam freely outside the fences, and Moe and Cissy were making a racket, so I knew something was wrong. I kinda panicked and tore the door off the frame when I opened it. Smelled blood as soon as I went outside.”

Juliette turned around, and I was not remiss to the worry I saw in her eyes. “What happened, Mark?” she asked.

He had moved to my side and laid a hand on my shoulder. “I was checking the fences like Saphrona asked me to. A snake spooked the horse and he reared. I’d have fallen straight off if my foot hadn’t got caught in the stirrup. Herugrim kinda trampled me a little before I got uncaught.”

I cringed to hear him speak of being trampled by a frightened horse so casually and apparently Juliette didn’t like it either; I heard her inhale sharply. Then again, I reminded myself, Mark was used to being injured severely and healing within minutes or hours as a side effect of his “condition.”

“Mark, you should take getting injured more seriously,” Juliette told him sternly.

“Jules, I was within inches of death when I got injured in Afghanistan a year ago,” he told her, pulling down the neck of the t-shirt he’d put on. “This ain’t just a scratch, little sister—this baby cut the jugular. Twenty minutes after, when I should have been dead for at least fifteen minutes, they were calling it a minor flesh wound and couldn’t figure out how I’d lost so much blood.”

She shook her head, her hands going to her hips. “You’re lucky that horse didn’t crack your skull—just because you’re a dhunphyr doesn’t mean you’re invincible.”