Page 78 of Love Bites

"Why does it have to be pink?"

"I thought the color suits you." He snapped his fingers again and my clothes turned back to normal. "Better?"

"Loads."

"All right. Let's go." He started down the sidewalk, and I followed.

"How did you ring the door?"

"I didn't." He shrugged. "If you really want to know my secret, I paid some kid to do it. Said it was a prank."

"Clever."

Aldrich smiled. "Live as long as I do and you learn to work around your limitations. Also that kids will do anything for a few dollars."

"Are you advocating child labor?"

"Me?" Aldrich pressed a hand to his chest in a dramatic fashion. "Never. How could I do that to those poor little angels?"

"Cut it, I'm not buying it," I waved him off.

"All right, all right." Aldrich laughed and walked a few more steps. "How's everything going? How's your brother doing?"

"Which brother? Luke? He's still grieving."

"Sorry to hear it. How's the hot one doing?"

The hot one? I groaned. "You mean Remy? Forget it, man. He's not playing for our team." A fact I'd had to break to more than one man. Remy was model-level attractive. In fact, he'd been offered those jobs out of high school, but he'd turned them down. He wasn't interested in that kind of thing. Never had been. His good looks and easy smiles came effortless. If he hadn't been my brother I might have hated him.

"Are you sure?" Aldrich asked. "That's a shame."

"Totally sure." I gave Aldrich a sympathetic smile. "Sometimes I think he's not playing for any team at all."

“What do you mean by that?”

I shrugged. “Just haven’t ever seen him with anyone.”

Aldrich mulled this over in his head, rubbing his chin. I didn’t want to keep talking about my brother, though.

"Just tell me why you came?” I asked. “And where's Talon? I've been trying to reach him."

"He's... kind of busy, but I can take you to him. That's actually why I'm here. I hate to see the two of you fighting."

"Really?" Had Talon told him? What exactly had he told him?

"Did Talon ever tell you how he got his scars?" Aldrich asked instead of responding to my question.

I shook my head. "It never seemed like something he wanted to talk about."

Aldrich stopped walking to look me in the eyes. "He got them for letting you get away."

Letting me get away? That made no sense. Talon had already had his scars when we first met.

No,a voice in my mind corrected me.The first time you met Talon, you were five.

And that was also when he'd let me get away, wasn't it? Because I was still alive. If Talon's coven had wanted my parents dead, they would have wanted me dead too, but I wasn't. Talon had ignored his orders, even though he hadn't known me.

He'd saved my life.Decadesbefore I’d met him at that bar.