touched her?”
I shake my head. “I got nothing.” I’m not lying. I will tell my twin everything. I need to tell all of my brothers. Not here and not now.
2
Raven
West pushes the door open. It hits the wall with a bang. “What the fuck was that, Raven? What just happened?” he asks as we walk into the alley. I pick up the scent of rotting garbage and pee. Must be gallons of pee. I wrinkle my nose. A heightened sense of smell isn’t always a good thing.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say. “We need to leave…now.” I start walking towards our rust-bucket of a car. “We should never have done this.” I’m panicking. “Did you see the camera? They were filming us.” I’m breathing hard but can’t seem to catch my breath. “The audience was big. You said it was low-key, Maddox,” I say to my brother, who looks sheepish.
“We needed the money,” Maddox says, his eyes barely meeting mine.
“We needed to stay under the radar,” I try not to yell.
“We need food and a roof. I calculated the risk and I think we’ll be okay.”
“Okay? You thought…?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I groan in frustration.
“You kissed him,” West interjects, his voice is a low growl.
I stop and turn. I glare at him. Asshole!
“Why the hell would you kiss that fucker?” he practically snarls when I don’t say anything.
“Stop it!” I yell at him. “Just stop! This is not the place for that kind of discussion. It’s not even worth talking about.”
“West is right.” My brother looks at me with concern. “Why would you kiss some random guy?”
“Not random.” West shakes his head. “They’re not human. I’m not sure what they are exactly, but human…” He shakes his head, touching his jaw. “No human could have hit like that or taken some of those punches. The last one I landed should’ve put a hole in his head. He barely lost his footing. His friends didn’t look human either.”
“That’s why I stopped the fight,” I say. “Before things got out of hand. You were both about to out us. I’m not sure what you were thinking, West. You moved too quickly and punched too hard. Next thing, scales would have erupted, possibly even a decent set of wings…how would that have looked? I’m pretty sure that Rage guy’s eyes had started to glow. And you…” I glare at Maddox, “as his manager, you should have been the one to stop the fight. Not me!”
Maddox gets that sheepish look again, looking down at his feet.
“You’re right.” West nods once. “It was the right call, even if I didn’t like it.” His eyes narrow. “You didn’t have to kiss that fucker.” His jaw is tight. His whole body bristles. “I cannot believe you did that. What the fuck? If you were trying to make me jealous…”
Holy hell! I don’t have time for his shit. “I pecked his cheek. It was hardly a kiss,” I mutter. I shouldn’t have done it. I sometimes get a flood of emotion when I have a vision. This was weird, since my emotions didn’t match the actual vision. Not at all. Still, it was the reason for my actions. The only reason. It wasn’t because I noticed how incredible his eyes were. They had this softness to them. I got the impression that he’s a kind, really sweet guy. They were a gorgeous chocolate-brown. Chocolate happens to be a favorite of mine. And then, despite his masculine jaw, he had soft, smooth skin. Probably freshly shaven. So smooth, I wanted to run my finger down his jawline. Stupid, I know. I could scent a splash of fresh cologne and soap and toothpaste and…he smelled really good. His arms were also a thing of beauty. I thought West was a big guy. I was wrong!
“What did you say to that asshole?” West touches my arm, bringing me back from my thoughts. “You had a vision, didn’t you?” His eyes narrow further. “Tell us about it.”
“We need to get out of here. That’s all I’m saying right now.”
“You owe me an explanation.” West grabs my arm as I’m about to turn away from him.
I yank my arm free. “I don’t owe you anything. Not a damned thing…are we clear?” He lost that right six months ago. I’m still in such a bad place after everything that happened. We all are. This kind of life is hard.
My eyes must convey what I don’t say out loud because I