REPERCUSSIONS
By
Isabelle Arocho
isabellearocho.com
Copyright 2012 Isabelle Arocho
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Prologue
“Dad, I keep trying Evie and she isn’t answering her phone.”
Caleb turned his attention to his worried sixteen year old daughter, who he knew could sometimes over exaggerate herself into a frenzy. “Maybe she’s still asleep.” The woman in question worked long and late hours. She was also a woman he was trying to forget existed, except she was there every night when he closed his eyes. Their relationship over the years had shifted from coexisting into something much deeper, certainly more complicated.
Jamie sighed and held up her cell phone clutched in her hand. “She always answers.”
Caleb knew what Jamie wanted him to say even if it was the last thing he wanted to do this early morning. He normally liked some time to prepare where Evangeline Cortez was concerned. It had been several days since they last saw each other. One more look at Jamie’s face and he knew this wasn’t a battle he was winning. “Let’s go pay her a visit then.” Jamie was on her feet nearing the door before he had even finished the sentence. She and Evangeline were close, Jaime regarded the woman as a sister, and she knew firsthand how much trouble she could find.
The short walk down the street from their residence to Evangeline’s home was quicker, far quicker than he remembered. Jamie wasted no time, knocking loudly on the door. If Evangeline was still asleep, it wouldn’t be for long with the strength Jamie used in her knock.
Much to both their surprise the open opened very quickly. Evangeline showed no signs of having been in bed. She was dressed in a pair of tight jeans with a rip at the right knee and a black t-shirt. It was something he had seen her wear a thousand times, it wasn’t out of the ordinary, and yet something was wrong. He could see it all over her face, a worried expression she was failing at hiding. It was a good thing Jamie pestered him to check up on their neighbor.
Jamie, with her lack of patience, stepped inside the house failing to notice the uncomfortable shift in the air. “I called a bunch of times and you didn’t answer.”
“I don’t have my phone.” There was confusion all over her face, it dripped from her soft voice.
Caleb called her name. “Evangeline.” Her wide eyes snapped to his face instantly. “What’s wrong?”
She placed her hand over her chest in attempts to calm her racing heartbeat; he could hear it from across the living room. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. Why am I responding to you? I have this painful need to confide in you and it makes no sense.” His presence did nothing to help her growing frustration. Where she would normally try to hide her emotions they reigned free.
If he couldn’t see the distress on her face, taste it in the air, and hear her racing heart, her confession sealed the deal. Never would she have admitted such a truth before. He knew he had to be careful, she was already terrified and he didn’t want to make it worse. “That’s because you know you can trust me. What don’t you remember?”
“I don’t remember anything.” She snapped tightly, big colorful eyes pleading as the bore into his. “I woke up here and I don’t know where here is. I didn’t know my name until you said it and I have no idea who either of you are.”
Chapter 1
After promising he’d do everything in his power to aid Evangeline, Caleb sent his teenage daughter home where it was safer and where she wouldn’t hover and bombard Evangeline with questions she had no answers to.
He moved over to the couch and sat next to the confused woman. With no problems with his own memories, they didn’t allow him to escape the reality of the kiss they shared on this very couch. He had made the first move, but not the last. It was pitiful how with no effort he could smell the perfume she wore that night, he could feel every texture of her lips across his, her skin beneath his hands.
“Tell me who you are.” She begged, her voice like broken pieces of glass breaking through his memories. He knew that was for the better, now wasn’t the time to try and rehash what transpired between them.
“My name is Caleb Nikolas and I live in the house two doors from you. The girl who just left was Jamie, my daughter. The two of you are very close.”
“And who are we to each other? Me and you?”
The alpha wolf was speechless and that didn’t happen very often. Without her memories Evangeline was speaking of things she never would’ve brought up before. It should be a simple question, even an expected question in her condition, yet he was speechless. “We’re in the same boat about that, because I don’t know what label would fit. We associate when the need arises.” He didn’t want to tell her how over the last few months everything changed, they had been on the road to becoming friends but stolen kisses and a mistake on his living room floor changed all that. Again he couldn’t stop his thoughts form going there, to that one blissful afternoon she belonged to him, the feel of her body, her hands on him, and the utterly blissful sensation of being inside of her. He didn’t consider their budding romance a mistake, she did however, and managed to break his heart with her constant need to remind him what could never be.
“I feel something toward you.” The uncertainty was all over her face. “I can’t remember why but everything inside of me is saying to trust you. For something as impersonal as you explained, why do I feel like this?”
It seemed amnesia was good for something. Without memories there was no filter on what she was willing to admit. Caleb took comfort in knowing she still trusted him even now. “We’ve saved each other’s life.” It was the only explanation he could think of and proceed to tell her about the time she saved Jamie from being kidnapped, a warlock had been about to stab him when she intervened. It was that night he learned some of the secrets concerning her power.
A feud began that night between her and that warlock. He had been a member of the coven she grew up in and later ran from at the tender age of fifteen. To save her own life, she killed that warlock, forced to face the wrath of his grieving family and the entire coven.
Caleb was always more grateful than he could put into words for the sacrifice she made on behalf of his family. Saving his daughter was a debt he could never repay, not for the lack of trying on his part and the distance on her part. In an attempt to keep the coven from extracting revenge on Evangeline’s life, he struck a deal with them for her freedom. It worked too, until a friend from her past betrayed her confidence and dragged her back home. The elders had sentenced her to face a trial where her punishment would be decided, surely death for the life she took. If she hadn’t found a way to escape she wouldn’t be sitting next to him now.
“My life sounds like a big mess.” Evangeline sat forward, resting her forearms around her lap while she absorbed the blanks he was able to fill in. “What happened next?”
Caleb wasn’t sure how to explain that, how to form the words that she ran to his place because hers wasn’t safe. She had used so much magic fighting and escaping the coven’s imprisonment, that she was out of control by the time she came to him. He tried to get her to calm down but all he succeed in doing was compromising his own control. One touch of his hand on her skin and he was standing at a very dangerous edge.
His wolf fought for control and won. The animal inside of him wanted to dominate her and did. A bite on her neck didn’t work. He couldn’t forget how she moaned his nam
e, he hadn’t been the only one affected by their closeness. Over the next two hours they had more sex than he had over the last several years. With her magic and shifting abilities she had just as much, if not more, stamina than him.
“Caleb?” she called his name and pulled him free from the torturous memories. “Do you know what happened after I escaped?”
“A woman named Bess Jane was recruiting you for a job. In exchange for your employment, she threatened the coven to stay away from you.” A breath of relief left his lunges as the conversation moved past those sticky haunting memories.
“What kind of job?”
“She created a special task force under the jurisdiction of the police department and FBI. Supernatural Crime Force, SCF for short. A group of hunters and cops patrol the city and handle any type of supernatural case work.” Caleb explained easily.
“You know a lot about it.” Memory or not, she was always perceptive.
“My second in command, Jake, and his brother are original members. His close friend Zoe is a cop, she brought them in when vampires were exposed to the public almost a year ago.”
Evangeline nodded, continuing to absorb all the information he was filling in. “Something, someone, caused me to lose my memory. If the coven is off my ass then maybe it was something I was working on.” She voiced her thoughts with no hesitation, ones that mirrored closely to his own. “Oddly enough the bigger question is, what do I do now?”
“I have an idea for that, although I’m not sure you’ll like it.”
Chapter 2
Amnesia Evangeline cooperated much easier than her usual stubborn self ever would’ve. When he suggested she stay with him because whatever danger she found was still out there, she agreed. She needed some form of backup and wasn’t afraid to take him up on the offer.
Jamie on the other hand was upset. Having Evie around was a dream come true but the young girl was on her way back to her mother’s house. Her flight left later today and there was no rescheduling it. “Come on, call mom and tell her I can’t come home yet.” Jamie wasn’t above begging, she clasped her hands together, pouted her lips, and made her eyes look as if he was asking her to cut off her arm.
“No. I don’t want you getting hurt. We don’t know what’s going on here and I’d focus better if you were home safe.” Caleb hated to disappoint his daughter, but being a parent meant making choices she didn’t like, often. “Finish packing. We have to leave in the next hour.” Jamie knew when to give up, how to spot the signs the battle was lost and there wasn’t a thing to be done to change the result. She didn’t inherit his lycan gene but she was still a smart warrior who knew when to give up.
Evangeline was seated on the couch where he left her before finding Jamie upstairs in her bedroom. He walked slowly, taking in the angles of her face, the anxious need in her scent to jump ahead and figure out this mess.
“After I get back we can start piecing together some of what’s happening.” He wanted to offer her some type of promise, something she could hold onto in the realm of hope. One way or another, they were going to figure this out and find the person responsible.
She glanced up from her hands and nodded, a weak smile playing at the corners of her mouth. He stared into her eyes, and like many other times, he had to turn away before get got too lost in them.
Over the next two hours he got Jamie to the airport. As they said their goodbyes he made her promise to call the minute she landed and when she got back home too. He hated the idea of her traveling alone but for obvious reasons, he couldn’t always be there to see her to her mother’s doorstep. In turn she made him promise to help Evie and keep her safe. Jamie was scared for her friend, she made no attempt to sugarcoat it with the stubborn adolescence she usually carried. Worry lines were etched in her young face, and even his promise to make this better didn’t ease her anxiety.
Back home, he didn’t immediately spot his houseguest. “Evangeline?” he finished locking up the front door, his navy eyes looking for signs of anything amiss.
“In here.”
He followed her voice upstairs to the bathroom. The door was open and the first thing he took notice of was her shirt was off and she wore a rather sexy blue bra. His eyes jumped to her in silent inquiry. She turned around and revealed a large gash across her back, there went any lust that had started to churn in his belly. “What happened?” he stepped closer for a better look, the cut was deep and painful looking.
“I was downstairs when I felt the impact of it. I didn’t have it before, I know that. How bad is it?” she hissed every other word through gritted teeth. True to form, she wanted to fight past the pain and show no weakness.
Caleb was uneasy about all of this, someone was hurting her from afar. “It’s large from your shoulder blade down to the center of your back. I shouldn’t have left you alone.” He touched his fingers to the unmarked spots of her back, they were tender from the impact of a wound that didn’t look more than a few minutes old.
She inhaled sharply at his touch. “This is my mess. You can’t blame yourself.”
It wasn’t that easy, he silently thought, he couldn’t turn off the burning need to protect her. A need that had always been there, even when they hadn’t known much about each other. “Come on, lets get this cleaned up and bandaged.” It was best to stay in the present. He led her from the bathroom down the hallway to his bedroom, where he instructed her to lie down on her stomach. Inside the closet he kept a box loaded with medical supplies for cases such as these; wounds they must tend to themselves. “Do you hurt anywhere else?” this could’ve been much worse, that he knew, it was a blessing he didn’t find her dead.
“No, not yet.” Her attitude was understandably grim.
Caleb sat on the bed beside her stretched out body. “I need to unclip this.” He was careful not to aggravate her wound as he unhooked her bra. Evangeline sucked in a tight breath, her shoulders stiff and unmoving, she didn’t release it until the straps of material were out of the way. “It’s ok.” He whispered, his thoughts already starting to race to a hundred. “Before this happened, did anything stand out?” he began to clean the dried blood off with a soft towel and peroxide.
“No, I was actually watching TV.” She turned her head to where he was seated. “Would anyone suspect we’d be together?” it was a smart question, yet there was more than one reason she was asking. She wanted to know about their personal situation and it was written all over her open expression.
“Yes.” He left it at that, dropping his eyes from her stare and beginning to bandage her back.
“Is there something else going on here?” she wasn’t willing to drop her curiosity quickly this time.
“I don’t understand why you keep asking me that.” He really didn’t, he didn’t know what was going through her head or what she was feeling to fuel so many questions she never would’ve brought up with her memory intact.
She frowned, he felt the heat of her stare on his face. “It feels like I’m missing something.”
“What are you feeling?” Caleb caved and asked the million dollar question. He felt it as clear as day; the conflict surrounding her. There were so many ways he could fantasize this conversation going, but deep down he knew that’s exactly what they would always be; fantasy.
She sat up carefully to keep her arm across her chest. “I don’t know.” Even now, with no memory, she still found a way to run away from him. “We should start gathering clues like you suggested.”
Caleb nodded. It sounded like a perfectly good idea, even if his heart clenched in protest with a burning desire to know more of her hidden feelings. “Whatever happened recently caused you to shift. You only do that when you’re scared and need to get away quick.”
“How do you know it’s recent?”
His eyes found their way back to her beautiful face, the color of her eyes that always reminded him of stormy clouds in a once bright blue sky. “I smell the wolf across your skin.” Th
at came out hoarser than he intended.
The sudden change of intensity in the air wasn’t lost on her, she dropped her eyes from his face and grew mindful of her lack of clothing. “Do you have something I can borrow?”
Without answering he got up and went back to the closet. He grabbed something roomy, there shouldn’t be anything touching against her sensitive wound. As she dressed in the long button down shirt, he cleaned up the medical supplies.
When he returned and sat back down on the bed he noticed the blue delicate material of her bra clutched in her hand. Knowing her breasts were bare behind his shirt sent a shot of desire low in his groin. It did nothing to help his already lust laden brain. “How did you get home? What was the first thing you remember?” Caleb was desperate to shift his thoughts onto safer footing.
“I woke up there, at home, I was looking around when I heard someone at the door. You know the rest from there.” She shrugged her shoulders; the tight answer over the unknown returned to her expression.
“If someone wanted to hurt you they could have, they already have.” Caleb realized. “To send you back home—maybe you have something or knew something they didn’t want you to pass on.”
“Pass to the cops I work with. That makes sense.” Evangeline ran her hands through her hair, as a last minute decision she left them at the base of her neck. “To make me lose my memory, they’d have to know magic and that puts the coven back in play.”
“Not entirely. There are other types of witches right here in town.”
“So, I should probably talk to that Bess girl and find out what I was working on.”
“Would you like me to call her? Or do you want to go to the office?” he was ready to get the ball rolling and figure out what she was involved in before the person tried to hurt her again.
“I’d like to stop by the office but first I want more answers from you.” Just when he thought the attraction in the air scared her off from asking such questions, here they were again.