Chapter 4 - Cyrus

My attempts at getting Lena to let me talk to her are failing miserably. After the incident where she pelted me with candle-making supplies, there was another lovely moment at the market where she chucked a cantaloupe at my head. Somewhere in the last eight years, she's become a thrower.

In all honesty, she may have always had this inclination, we just never fought in the past when I was here. Everything used to come so naturally between us.

We'd gone from bumping into each other on the street to inseparable and insatiable. Our days were spent mostly secluded. We'd help garden and gather herbs for her Gram. We would take little Rose for hikes and I'd help with her schoolwork, or any chance we could manage being alone, we were absolutely unable to keep our hands off each other. I loved her from that first moment intensely, and it came as easy as breathing.

I have no idea how to navigate this new version of us. There is no arguing that the attraction is still there. I can see it in her eyes. I just have no clue how to move past the hurt that's there.

It doesn't help that Evander is adamantly against my seeing her. Every time I go out to see her, I am greeted by his petulant, holier-than-thou judgment about how this is a terrible idea. He just keeps harping on about how we should "stick to the plan" and let Rufus be the one to initiate contact with her.

In a perfect world, I would go along with that plan. It's a good plan, but this isn't that world. There is no world where I could be within twenty miles of her and not be drawn to her like an addict looking for another hit.

I'm back again, trying to get her willpower to break just enough to let me explain. Begging for that moment where I can feel her melt for me. I hate this frigid version of her.

She heads for the bar after closing up the shop, and I text the team and tell them to meet me there.

After running three Eclipse members off her property last night, I don't want to take chances. They're getting bold. Letting Lena be solo, even in public places, is getting far too dangerous, and it's not a risk I'm willing to take.

My phone lights up with Evander's text, then a phone call from Amelie that I send to voicemail. She calls back immediately and gets rejected two more times. The fourth call I answer with a scowl.

"Amie, what is it now? We spoke this morning for your update, what could you possibly have to tell me right now that can't be a text or wait until morning?"

"What are you doing that you can't talk?"

"Not your concern, Little One," I sigh as my eyes follow Lena around inside the lit-up bar. "What do you need?"

She pleads with me to come home immediately. It's been her entire stance since the day we left. Her insistence that the attacks are increasing feels flimsy. I think she's still just upset at the idea of me wanting to stay with Lena again. Despite being twenty-five, she was still aggressively protective of our family.

Our mother died when she and Milo were young, and after she'd just stuck to me like glue. Amelie still has a long way to go maturing. This extra responsibility is making that much apparent.

I let out a deep sigh. This is exhausting. I feel like this entire mission has been nothing but a battle from all sides emotionally.

"Look, Amelie," I cut her off as I see the guys turning the corner, "I have to meet with the team and update them on the day. You'll have to resort to busting my ass on our morning update. Try not to kill anyone between now and then."

I end the call with another deep sigh that pulls from my soul as the guys fill in around me at the table. They're all going to be the death of me I swear.

Evander is finally caving and let me take point today with nothing more than an angsty sigh. I don't think it's that he approves, but more so that he's just accepted I will out-stubborn even Rufus if it comes down to it. It also helps that he can't actually tell me what to do with any authority as his Alpha. I do respect his opinions most of the time as my second in command, but this is different.

"Are you even getting anywhere with her?" Kaius asks in disbelief as their eyes take in the underwhelming scene of the only bar in town, O'Dowell's. The six of us take up every bit of the small table on the patio. Despite Milo being the only one who was actually my family, they all felt like my brothers.

Rufus is wedged next to me, all pale skin with freckle-covered muscles and a shock of red waves pulled up into a man bun. His bright green eyes dance around the patio and the bar, taking everyone in. Evander is to his other side, his dark black hair spiked up with far more care than he'd ever admit to. Evander is smaller and shorter than anyone else on the team, but he's also the fastest of us—probably the most levelheaded, too.

Milo is directly across from me on the opposite side of the table. His hair is a blend of silver and black, falling messily across his face to mask his amber eye so that just the blue one peeks out. This is his way of blending. It's always been a challenge for him when it comes to blending in with the starkly different eyes.

Kaius is opposite Rufus in the middle, with a wide grin plastered on his face and shockingly white teeth standing out brilliantly against the deep brown of his skin. Orion rounds us out on the other corner of the table, his tan skin and black hair and pointed face give him a mysterious and foxlike look. It's the best we can blend in with humans, in all honesty. He just looks mystical, no matter how you slice it.

Kaius's question pinpoints how much I'm failing to get through to Lena. This isn't getting us anywhere.

"Not even remotely," I sigh, shoveling another handful of questionably stale peanuts into my mouth in frustration.

"Do you have any idea how many people's hands have probably been in those?" Rufus asks with disgust clearly written on his face.

"Oh, come on. We all know Cy isn't particular about the nuts he puts in his mouth," Kaius laughs.

"Watch it. I'm really not in the mood. How can you be simultaneously the most fearless person in the face of actual life-threatening danger, but afraid of germs?"

The team's chuckles die a bit as my tense warning settles in the air.

"At least from here, you know that no one goes in or out without us seeing it. If she won't let you get closer, at least this gives us our best shot of keeping an eye on her tonight," Milo suggests.

"Look who's coming," Rufus whispers, nudging me hard with his elbow as Lena moves through the bar toward the door to the patio. She looks up, locking eyes with me. I think she's going to come outside, but she turns on her heel and immediately smacks into a man who's stumbling around the bar.

I'm up from the table in a flash as I see the man's hands grip at her hips, and I'm already through the door as her hands push the drunk idiot away.

"Merl, no. I'm good. I don't want to dance, thanks."

She's squirming away from his greedy hands all over again as he tries to pull her back in. There's a breath before I step between them, and his hand reaches up to grab at Lena's hip again and ends up being met with my arm. I glare down at him, barely suppressing the urge to rip him to shreds.

"Leave her alone."

"Leave him alone. It's just Merl. He's harmless."

Lena is pulling at my arm, trying to break the tension as I'm staring down the sad excuse for a man swaying and looking up at me, his balding head bobbing as he looks around in confusion.

"I just wanted a dance," he slurs with a strong gust of whiskey on his breath.

Lord, he's got to be ninety percent alcohol at this point.

"No. She's not yours to dance with."

"Oh my God," she groans in frustration, smacking my shoulder and pulling hard at my arm to turn me, "I'm no one's to dance with. Move it, you big muscle-fueled sack of jealous idiot."

She's trying to push me toward the door. Her small hands are now pressed firmly against my chest. The proximity distracts me from the momentary rage for whoever Merl was. Her hands on my chest remind me of other times they'd been there.

My eyes lock on hers, and I can feel that passion rising in me all over again. My thoughts are flooded with images of her legs wrapped around me, pressing her body up against a wall to kiss her. I slide my hand lightly from the curve of her hip up the side of her back and pull her a little closer. She shivers and holds my eyes for just a moment.

"He had his hands on you," I grumble. She continues shoving me out to the patio while I try to shake the images from my mind before there's a very real physical reminder between us.

"Okay, calm down. It's Merl. He's literally harmless. He gets plastered every night. He tries to dance with everyone. We all tell him no, and he passes out either in his bed safely or on a bench somewhere in town and wakes up in the drunk tank with Sarah in the morning. Every night. Give him a few more whiskeys and he'll ask you to dance, too."

She stops just short of the table with a look of irritation all over her face, her hands still resting on my chest. I am twitching, torn between the urge to pull her closer and the urge to go back inside and tear Merl a few new holes.

Rufus clears his throat. "Want to introduce us to your friend, Boss?"

Lena's eyes grow wide as if just remembering that she is supposed to be mad at me and has left her hands wandering. She snatches them back and shoves them in the back pockets of her jeans. Her eyes narrow as that newly familiar fiery look returns.

"I'm not his friend if that's what he's told you."

"His hands were on you," I hiss in a whisper. I can't let it go. Much as she may have distracted me, that idiot still had his hands on my mate. I should kill him.

"It's not your problem to worry about anymore. Back off."

She's deathly quiet and glaring at me intensely, looking as if she would like nothing more than to rip me a few new holes.

Evander's hand clamps down on my shoulder, pulling me back a step. I don't even register him standing up from the table. That's not good. My head turns to him in anger, but the look on his face is enough to get me to pause. He looks genuinely concerned. He is wearing that look he gets when I'm about to do something I'll regret.

"Are we not doing introductions then?" Kaius asks with a laugh, breaking the tension. "Just jumping right to pulling Boss off the poor town drunk? Sounds like a party."

I sigh deeply and turn to glare at him.

"That's Kaius. He thinks he's hilarious. This is Evander. He"s annoyingly worried about me making an ass out of myself. Orion, Milo, and Rufus." I gesture to each of them while I introduce them all begrudgingly.

"You've got a whole group committed to this ridiculous theory that I'm in danger? What the hell, Cy?"

"I need air. I need to clear my head, or I'm going to go back in there and strangle Merl."

"You're already outside, genius. You aren't going to touch a single stray remaining hair on Merl's bald head. Sit down," she orders, shoving at me again.

Five pairs of eyes turn to her in fascination as I sink into a seat. They are not used to seeing anyone order me around, let alone push me to do anything and get me to comply.

"Why would you be here as geologists and be here about my safety? Lies, really? That's your big plan here. To come back out of the blue and lie to me?"

She asks it so quietly and with a wary look in her eyes. She sounds genuinely hurt. I want to lay it all out for her.

I look up at her and feel myself losing the internal battle I am struggling with wanting to tell her the whole truth. I open my mouth to answer but am saved by the strangest shriek in Rufus's deep baritone voice as his voice cracks through the air, pulling my attention.

I turn with the rest of the group to examine the source of Rufus's apparent danger and see a large, fat raccoon planted squarely on his lap, facing the table.

"Ah! Rabies. It's going to give me rabies. I'm a goner!"

"Oh my God, big brave man, aren't you?" Kaius laughs as he hands a stale peanut to the little wiggling hands that are reaching out toward him from the perch on Rufus's lap.

"Um, I wouldn't do that if I were you," Lena laughs as Kaius hands over another nut with glee.

"Why not? Is rabies a thing?" I ask out of sheer morbid curiosity as my shoulders shake with laughter.

"That's Roscoe. No rabies. We chipped in to have him vaccinated. He is the most dangerous thing in this town though, like I told you. If you feed him, he will never leave you alone. Pro tip: keep a close eye on anything valuable when he's around. He's got the stickiest fingers in town."

She starts to turn away, and I reach out for her hand and catch it for a moment. Her eyes drift back to me, and there's a different look there that I don't remember seeing before. Disappointment.

"You don't get to be jealous and claim me. I'm really not interested in any more lies. Please, just stop if that's all you've got."

The sigh she exhales as she steps away feels like another knife. I'm less and less sure that I can fix this between us. I'm more convinced than ever that I can't stay away. I can't stand that she won't let me close enough to even just explain, but I have no idea how to convince her to let me.

Shit.

I'm up and chasing after her, knowing this is a terrible idea. There's eventually going to come a point where either I'm going to feel like I have no choice but to share our secret with her, or I'll just push her away in my attempts to keep hiding it.

As focused as I am on protecting her for the sake of the mission, there's so much more to it now. I can't be this close to her without those feelings flooding back. She's a piece of me that's supposed to be with me. That can't change. That bond isn't any weaker after all this time and all this distance.

I need her back as fiercely as I need to protect her. How do I do that when she doesn't trust me? She's leaving me with fewer and fewer options. Each time I let her out of my sight, we risk something happening. I don't know if I can live with myself if something happens to her. Prophecy be damned.

I need to figure out how to get her to see reason. I can't keep her safe when I'm not there.