Shards: Book One of the Anderian Series

Chapter 18: Opportunities

Cian's revelation sank in with all the finesse of a boulder falling into a pond, and I sank back into my seat with a sick feeling spreading through my body. This Shard inside of me wasn't a piece of some magical artifact—it was part of a soul, and no wonder my ancestors gained power from carrying them around. Of course, he could be lying, but—I pinched the bridge of nose and made a raspberry with my lips—for some reason, I believed him. What did that say about this fucked up situation that I believed him more than anyone else?

"Who?"

Cian didn't acknowledge me in words, but from the corner of my eye, I saw him tense and shift slightly. Anyone else might have dismissed it. He could just be getting comfortable, but my years of training made me especially adept at reading body language. That question was unwelcome, and I put less than 50/50 odds on getting a useful answer.

"Who?" I asked again when the silence stretching between us proved me right.

"That's not important."

"I'm literally carrying a piece of someone inside of me. I think I have a right to know who."

"Does it change anything?" I glowered at him. "That's what I thought."

Switching directions, I said, "If they locked you out of your country, what makes you think it's a good idea to go back? You're more likely going to be killed."

"That's a real possibility," he admitted, rolling to a stop at a stop sign. No one was behind us, so he put the car in park and looked at me. "But it's m—our—duty to go back and try to help the people who got stuck there."

"They've been there five hundred years."

"In your time. In Andarie, time moves differently, and our lives are long. We have to go home." He put the car in drive and pulled through the intersection.

"So, you were never going to consider any other way but this one?"

"Bria. I'm sorry."

"Then what was that back there?" This question caught him off guard, but it made him almost as uncomfortable as the one about whose soul was inside me. "Guess you're just an opportunist."

"That isn't what happened."

"No? If Kohl hadn't banged on that door, we both know you would've been banging me."

"I didn't see you complaining."

"Of course not," I snapped. "I was fulfilling my end of a deal."

The scream of tires skidding across asphalt was choked off by the crunching of gravel as the car came to a stop on the shoulder of the road, teetering dangerously over a ditch. Cian slammed the car into park and cut the engine, his eyes a stormy shade of blue that terrified and aroused me. Because I was clearly a sick, sick girl.

"Is that what you were doing back there? Really?"

Nodding, I picked at a cuticle. "Yep."

"And the way you screamed when you came, that was just you paying your dues?"

"Hey," I flicked the dead skin at him and then poked his shoulder. "I won't lie and say you didn't make my toes curl. I'll consider that a bonus to add to the not dying part."

He made a dangerous sound in his throat and leaned over the console, forcing me to scoot until my back was against the passenger door. Not once had I ever been unaware of how big the Andarien was, but he seemed to grow larger, filling the space until breathing became difficult.

Refusing to cower, I lifted my chin. "I know what I thought I was getting out of it, but there's only one thing you were getting. Guess you're not so different from your buddies Fynn and Kohl after all."