Neighbours and Nastiness

The harsh glare of the kitchen pendant light beats down on the small table between us, illuminating the rigid set of the Shifter’s jaw. The more minutes I spend trapped in my own apartment with this infuriating man, the more I seriously begin to wonder if fate has made a massive mistake. I stare across the scratched wooden surface, my eyes tracing the invisible line of the glowing red thread that tethers my chest to his.

I wonder, not for the first time, if there is a loophole in the universe. Some hidden, ancient method to snap these threads or sever them for good. I have never seen it happen. Not even death offers an escape. Once, walking past the wrought-iron gates of the city cemetery, I watched a frail old man kneeling beside a fresh grave. A vibrant, pulsing red thread flowed from his weary chest, plunging straight down into the cold earth to connect him to his buried wife. It painted a depressing picture, yet it possessed a morbid romance. It proved that true bonds outlasted breathing.

Watching the red thread connect people forever has always felt deeply romantic when applied to others. But as I sit here, my bare legs pressed against the hard edge of my chair, looking at the arrogant, golden-eyed man across from me, I simply cannot fathom being eternally linked to such a colossal jerk. I wanted a sweet meet-cute. I wanted a soulmate who smiled at me, maybe brought flowers, or at least didn't interrogate me like a criminal. Instead, I get this brooding wall of muscle who looks ready to rip my throat out. I hope the universe knows what it is doing.

"Yes, I will be friends with your twin sister," I tell him firmly, leaning forward to perfectly match his intense scowl. "It is fated."

He crosses his arms, the dark fabric pulling tight across his biceps. "You aren't even a Shifter," he grates out. "Why in the world would fate ever pair my elite Shifter sister with a non-Shifter?"

My jaw clenches. I sharply snap back, "What does that have to do with anything? Everyone gets a fate, regardless of the circumstances of their birth. Fate only sees threads, it does not care about species. When I look at someone, I see the bonds tying them to the universe, not whether they grow fur on the full moon."

At my biting words, the hostility radiating from him falters. His rigid demeanor softens just a fraction. He stares at me, his golden eyes searching my face.

"Call me Kaelen," he states.

I blink. "What?"

"Call me Kaelen," he repeats. "Mr. Cross was my father."

A sudden, fleeting look of profound sadness washes over his striking features. It strips away the arrogant exterior for a split second, revealing a raw grief underneath. I do not know the details of what happened to his father, but looking at the misery clouding Kaelen’s eyes, I know the man is not alive and well.

I swallow the lump in my throat and nod slowly. "Fine. Kaelen, then. You can call me Bria." I figure we might as well get these awkward, hostile introductions out of the way. If this giant Shifter is truly my fated soulmate, we will have to cross the dreaded first-name boundary eventually.

He nods once, acknowledging the truce. Then, he takes a weirdly deep, drawn-out breath through his nose. His chest expands, and I watch as he openly takes in the air around us. The Shifter sense of smell. I read about it once—how they parse out a person's emotions, sweat, and pulse just from drawing in a lungful of air.

I cross my arms, getting straight back down to business. "Well, Kaelen, now I have a few questions for you."

He sighs, looking like I just offered him a root canal.

"Relax," I mutter. "I just want to know how you managed to track me all the way to my apartment from a vaguely signed scrap of paper. I did not leave my last name. You did not know it until I just told you, so I seriously doubt you pulled my address from the restaurant's employee files."

Kaelen takes another one of those deep, invasive breaths. "Your scent was all over the paper."

I stare at him. "My scent."

"I intercepted the warning note from my sister’s purse before she even had a chance to see it," he confesses, shifting his broad shoulders. "She was distracted, excited about the dinner. I caught the smell on the paper before she pulled it out. Your scent was exceptionally distinct. It was easy to track from the restaurant, down the block, and all the way to your door."

I huff out a breath, trying not to think about the blatant invasion of privacy. "Maybe it's because I walked home barefoot," I say nonchalantly.

His dark brows pull together in confusion. "Barefoot? Why would you do that on the city streets?"

I point a finger toward the front doorway, where my black work pumps lie discarded on the worn rug. "Because those mandated work heels are instruments of torture. I am pretty sure they were practically biting my feet off by the end of my shift. I had to ditch them."

He scoffs, crossing his arms again. He loudly doubts my claim. "They are just shoes. They cannot possibly be that bad."

"Oh, really?" I challenge, a spark of defiance flaring in my chest. I deliberately reach down, grab the heel of my fuzzy pink bunny slipper, and yank it off. I lift my bare foot into the air, presenting the gruesome evidence right over the edge of the kitchen table. "They are definitely that bad."

The skin on my heel is raw, scraped free of several layers of flesh. Angry red blisters bubble along the sides of my toes, and a smear of dried blood coats my arch.

Looking genuinely horrified by the bloody state of my foot, Kaelen’s tough exterior shatters. He abruptly leans forward. His large, calloused hands reach out and grab my bare foot.

The contact sends a violent jolt of electricity straight up my leg. The heat of his skin against mine sparks a shocking, magnetic pull that reverberates right into the center of my chest, tugging viciously on the red thread connecting us. I gasp, my breath catching in my throat.

Kaelen freezes instantly. His golden eyes snap up to mine, wide and alarmed. He realizes exactly what he has done. The crackle of energy between us is undeniable, hanging heavy and thick in the air. Just as quickly as he grabbed me, he jerks his hands back, releasing my foot like it burned him.

He falls back into his chair. I quickly pull my fuzzy bunny slipper back over my bruised skin, hiding my foot beneath the table. A suffocating, awkward silence blankets the room. Neither of us looks at the other. My heart hammers a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

Desperate to move past the bizarre tension choking the air out of the apartment, I clear my throat. "So," I say, my voice slightly unsteady. "I am surprised you went through such extreme effort to track me down. Why bother? Why not just throw the note away?"

He shifts uncomfortably in his chair, avoiding my gaze. His jaw flexes. Finally, he lets out a low breath. "She is my sister. I had to know if there was any truth to your warning. I needed to investigate it." He pauses, staring at the grain of the wooden table. "I have never bonded with Derrick. I fundamentally do not trust the man."

I open my mouth to agree, ready to dive into a rant about how Derrick’s fate thread belongs to someone entirely different, but a sudden movement catches my eye.

A dark shadow falls over the entryway.

I jerk my head up. Greg, my bigoted, nosy neighbor from down the hall, appears in the open doorway. My blood runs cold. In all the shouting and arguing with Kaelen, I forgot to shut and lock my front door.

Greg stands there, his thin arms tightly crossed over his chest, his face contorted into a nasty sneer. His beady eyes scan the room, skipping over me and landing directly on Kaelen. His tone drips with disgust.

"A Shifter?" Greg bites out. He glares venomously at the intricate Magic mark displayed openly on Kaelen’s muscular forearm. "I thought you were a decent, quiet girl, Bria. I hope you don't intend to have dangerous Shifters coming around the building at all hours of the day."

Instinctively, a low, menacing growl vibrates from Kaelen's chest. He instantly shifts into a low, defensive physical stance. His chair scrapes loudly against the linoleum floor as he rises, his muscles coiled tight and ready to strike at the threat invading the space.

Panic flares in my gut. I scramble to my feet, throwing myself forward. I physically step right between the two men, putting my back to Kaelen and glaring daggers at my neighbor.

"Greg, ignore him!" I snap, waving my hands. "Get out of my apartment immediately! This is my home."

Greg doesn't budge. He lifts his chin, looking down his nose at me.

"You have no right to barge in here," I loudly demand, my voice rising. "Our landlady, Agnes, owns this building. Not you. I pay rent just like you do, and I have the right to invite whoever I please inside my own walls."

Greg loudly scoffs, a wet, ugly sound. "I only came upstairs to check on you. I heard the racket. This brute almost knocked your door down ten minutes ago. I could hear him pounding from the bottom floor." He shifts his hateful gaze back over my shoulder to Kaelen, sneering loudly. "Magics constantly act like civilized rules don't apply to them, don't they? Think you can just do whatever you want."

I can practically feel the heat rolling off Kaelen’s body behind me. He is seconds away from snapping Greg’s neck. I am fed up. I am tired of hiding, tired of biting my tongue while bigots like Greg run their mouths and pass judgment on people they don't even know.

Without breaking eye contact with my sneering neighbor, I reach over and grab the sleeve of my oversized pajama top. I push the fabric up my arm, just high enough to reveal the black ink of my own Magic mark. The bottom edge of the Unknown symbol stares right back at him.

Greg's arrogant expression darkens considerably. The smugness drains out of his face, replaced by a deep scowl of disgust. He stares at my arm like I am carrying a plague.

"What the hell is this?" Greg complains, his voice rising into a whiny pitch. "Agnes promised us. She promised everyone in this building that we were safe from your kind." He lets out a harsh, mocking laugh. "I guess a little old lady is pretty easy to fool, huh? She probably has no idea what she let slither into her property."

Hearing him openly mock Agnes is the final straw.

Something inside my chest violently snaps. The sound is almost audible in my own ears. Greg can insult me all he wants. He can fight with Kaelen, he can throw his bigoted slurs around about Shifters. I have thick skin. I can take the hits. But Agnes is the best, kindest person I know. She gave me a home when no one else would look twice at an orphan with a blank past. I refuse to let this miserable man speak about her that way, especially not while standing in the middle of my own living room.

Blind, protective fury overrides my senses. Before my conscious brain even registers the movement, before I can think to pull back or measure the consequences, my hand flies forward through the air.

My palm connects with the side of Greg's face. I slap him incredibly hard, directly across his sneering cheek, the sharp crack echoing like a gunshot in the tiny apartment.