Page 1 of Heartless

Chapter One - Darkness

Vail,

Dad told me not to write. He said this letter won’t get through, even though we’re family. I hope he’s wrong. Not about being your brother, because that doesn’t change. Not with a fight. Not because you tossed my ass down the stairs. And not because we kissed.

We’re family, but we’re not blood. What we did wasn’t wrong, and I only regret it because you left and we didn’t get a chance to talk it through.

I was pissed at Dad, but he said I’m at school because of you. Your real family – his words, not mine - is paying my way, but only if I don’t rock the boat. He says you’re happy and it’s all worked out. Is that true? Because the last time we spoke, I asked for your address and he wouldn’t give it to me. Said to let things lie.

I think lie is the word. You know that weird click he gets in his throat when he’s trying to hide something? Well, he made up some story about you wanting space from us. How your family there is really protective, and you’re trying to play nice. Which sounds more like a jail than a school to me.

Are you really okay?

You’d tell me if you weren’t, right?

V, I’m freaking out now.

Dad was getting weird about you, so I borrowed a car and took a trip home. Only to find him gone, the house closed up and everyone on the Horn as jumpy as shit.

So I went to the North Cabin. A total bitch of a trek this time of year, but I thought he’d give me some answers. Only, he wasn’t there. Just a note, addressed to us both, saying he had some business to tie up. And a photo. I don’t know who they are, so I’ve put it in here, in case it means something to you…

What the hell’s going on, Vail? Have you seen him? Or spoken to him?

For the first time in my life I’m thinking about calling the cops. Shit, did I really write that?

My new number is (720) 621 8280. Call me. If the assholes at your school let you use a phone, that is.

Miss you,

Darkness.

PS. Trey gave me the address for this letter, so I hope he’s not jerking my chain.

Chapter Two – Vail

I folded Darkness’ letter and put it in my jeans’ pocket. It felt wrong, stuffing it away, but it was already crumpled, both from the dozen times I’d read it, and from Reed thrusting it at me before he stormed out of Callum’s room. I shivered as I remembered the metallic sheen in his eyes as he stared at the claiming mark on my wrist. A mark I’d promised to him only hours before. But if ever there was a reason to go back on our arrangement, it was the terrifying secret I’d discovered lurking under my skin.

More than ever, I wished I was back on the Horn. That I had more than just this little piece of Darkness, wrapped around an old picture. I brushed a thumb across the faded image, then flipped it over. No note or date on the back. It was just two smiling faces against a blurred background of soft shadows and sparkling sunlight. A woman who could be an older version of me, if not for her gray eyes and tanned skin, and the man I’d been told was Parker West. Sharp cheekbones, swept back hair and happiness dancing in his sky-blue eyes. She was wearing flowers in her hair, a lacy collar against her throat, while he was in a dark suit. A wedding picture, maybe? I didn’t know. But it was the closest thing I had to proof that my birth certificate was real. I was Vail West, a Marshall shifter with the blood of the Marrows in my bones. Not that any of that would save me from the fact I was the wrong kind of shifter.

And now the claimed mate of Callum Sawyer. Who in true alphadouche fashion, was going to milk my secret for all it was worth.

Urgh. I carefully tucked the picture in my pocket with the letter and flopped back down on the bed, longing to cover my eyes and block it all out. But that was kind of hard when my wrist – still tender from Callum’s blood claw – was encircled in a shifter-proof cuff.

The other end of which was looped around the alphadouche himself.

I’d spent my first month at Hunter Moon Academy avoiding Callum Sawyer like the plague. Other girls seemed to like what they saw, with his dark hair, black eyes, and pale skin. I got the aesthetics, but how did they miss the sneer, the scowl, the cruel and cutting things that came out of his mouth with every breath? Callum Sawyer didn’t have an ounce of Jasper’s charisma, or an inch of Reed’s discipline. But the girls still saw something in him that made it hard to look away.

I was honest enough to admit it might have something to do with how he looked now, spread out on his comforter in just a pair of black leather pants.

Don’t look, Vail.

“Callum!” I hissed, keeping my head averted as I shook his shoulder hard enough to rattle his spine. I’d been doing this on and off for a half hour, and if not for the faint movement of his chest, I’d think he was dead.

But no such luck.

“Wake up, Callum!” My voice was full of so much venom I was surprised his ear canal didn’t melt. “If you don’t wake up this minute..!” I gave a gurgling gasp as his hand, which had been lying on his pale stomach, drifted down to the band of his leather pants.

No, no, just no.

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