Read Hunger for You (Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts) for Free Online Page B

staring into the dark again, holding the phone to my ear but not giving him my total attention. It didn’t matter, just as the words I’d just stated wouldn’t matter. Brayden Sanchez had been born for one reason—to become a Shadow Shifter guard. He was a warrior through and through and even though he was the second born, he often led the three boys and one girl raised by the Sanchez couple.
    “Your Assembly needs soldiers committed to them and to their cause. I am not one of them. I’m not one of you.”
    I never had been, no matter how many times they called me their son or their brother, I knew it was all a lie.
    “Cut the dramatic bullshit, Caleb, and get your ass to D.C. ASAP!”
    This was Aidan, the oldest, the one they thought would lead. Only I knew how much Aidan actually despised the idea of following a preordained destiny. I’d championed him when hedecided to finish college, to strive for something else. Not when I heard the news of him falling for some girl and getting hooked up in that mating crap the tribes preached and going back to D.C. finally to do their bidding. I’d wanted to punch him in the gut for that move.
    Still, I had to smile at the sound of his voice. It had been too long since I’d talked to either of them.
    “You talk to your mate like that?” I asked, blinking away my dark stare and letting a smile creep along my face.
    I didn’t do that often either, really had no use for the action.
    “Don’t talk about her until you meet her face-to-face,” Aidan replied. “Which means you have to get here like yesterday.”
    “Nah,” I replied, laying my head back against the sofa. “Don’t think so.”
    “Why? What are you doing wherever you are that’s so damned important?” Brayden asked. “What means more to you than your family?”
    If I answered truthfully they’d show up at my door in about twenty minutes, tops. So I’d lie. I was getting used to doing that.
    “I’m thousands of miles away trying to take care of my own shit,” I told them.
    There were maybe two or three seconds of silence in which I knew I’d messed up big time.
    “What’s going on?” Brayden asked immediately.
    “You need backup?” was Aidan’s follow-up.
    I let out a breath. “I got this,” was my reply.
    “Doesn’t sound like it to me,” Aidan continued. “Is it male or female?”
    I could lie again but that wouldn’t end the interrogation. Besides, as long as they had no idea where I was, or how close I actually was to them, how close I’d made a point of sticking to them without them knowing, it didn’t matter.
    “Both.”
    “Human?” Brayden continued.
    “One of them,” I replied.
    “Rogue?” Aidan all but screamed through the phone. “Where are you? We can be there in—”
    “You can’t be anywhere but in that training facility about to take your finals. This is what you two were born for. It’s everything your parents ever wanted for you. I’m used to doing my own thing, nothing different about that this time.”
    “I don’t believe you,” Brayden said. “You don’t sound normal.”
    I chuckled at that. “I’m not normal on a good day, what makes now so different?”
    “Man, I don’t even want to hear about you being half human, half shifter. You’re my brother and you’ve been trained to be as deadly as any one hundred percent shifter ever born,” Aidan continued.
    “If you know all that you know I can handle whatever I’ve got going on,” I told him, feeling quite smug at the moment. “You two just get all certified and shit and then we’ll meet up and have a beer to celebrate. Tell Lidia no vodka for her.”
    I hung up before they did because I didn’t want to hear any more arguments. I didn’t want to hear the love in Brayden’s voice as he talked about his mate, Lidia, the sister I never knew I wanted. I didn’t want to hear any more of their concern or hope for my return to the team we’d created as kids.
    I just wanted to be on my own, to