Bright Star. Grayson Reyes-Cole

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      When the couple came through the door, Jacob Rush raised his head from the kitchen table where he’d been waiting for his brother. Before Rush had heard the call, Jackson had been overdue by at least half an hour. His brother, the consummate good boy, rarely got home late unless he was going out with friends on the weekends. This was a Wednesday, and even if it hadn’t been, Jackson always told Rush where he would be and generally for how long. On those rare occasions Jackson was delayed unexpectedly, he called to let Rush know he wasn’t coming home. Jackson was forever conscientious. Sensitive. Righteous. But he’d been late. Tawny, short-cropped hair, tanned skin, and a giant white smile coupled with an eagerness to please bordering on compulsive made Jackson a star. He was golden.

      But he was also Rush’s little brother, and he was late.

      Then the call had come like a thin piercing hum. It was a Shift. Nothing more than manipulated waves, frequencies, moving demi-atoms. His brother’s distressed and frantic state contacted him even before Jackson consciously thought to reach out. It had started out as a tickling buzz in his ears then graduated to a grating in his teeth. Then it had traveled, the current, through his body. Rush had felt the urgency, and then… Well then… Well, no one ever had a choice really, did they?

      Rush, of course, knew before the door opened that Jackson was not alone. Another first. Rush knew his brother to be quite successful with women. A Serviceman would have to try very hard not to be. They were physically perfect specimens, mysterious by nature and necessity. And then, there was that damned sensitivity.

      Boy Scouts without the saccharine and the pre-pubescent bodies—Jackson was the epitome of them, the mould. Still, he never brought women home. Rush discerned long ago that this wasn’t out of deference, not even respect. No. It was that Shifter sensitivity. Jackson didn’t want Rush to feel bad. The sincere and wholly unnecessary discretion never ceased to bring a wry smile to Rush’s lips. Just because he didn’t bring them home, didn’t make Rush any less aware of the number of women by whom his brother had become irrevocably yet temporarily fascinated. With a rising of gooseflesh on his arms, Rush grew painfully aware that this woman would be more than a strong but passing fancy. She was going to be the death of him.

      At first, just before he saved her, Rush didn’t know who she was. For a split second—he had to calculate it—his world was safe from her. He could breathe. He could see. He could eat, drink, walk, piss, spit and grin. He could go about his solitary business. But, Rush reasoned, that had been less than a second, and he had never really been safe.

      “Bright Star,” he breathed.

      She had made herself into a fantasy. His fantasy. When he’d first seen her so long ago, she’d been skinny, bearing no womanly curves. Elizabeth’s chest had been flat. Elizabeth’s lips had been thin and cracked and pale, making her look nothing less than dead. Elizabeth’s dingy white skin had had the same effect. Her smiles had been toothless and unsure. Her hair had been limp, brown and unhealthy, nearly always covering her eyes. Elizabeth had possessed no features worth remarking on, save for those eyes. They were so blue and startling he had seen the end of the earth in them.

      Now, as Bright Star walked through his door, her skin was creamy peach all over. Bright Star’s lips were full and a light, earthen red. Silken copper strands of her thick hair fell over her forehead into those amazing eyes. Bright Star’s body was all that was soft, rounded and womanly. She had none of the skinny angles and points of before. Her waist was narrow but her breasts were full as were her hips and bottom. He could tell Bright Star’s legs were long and shapely.

      Rush’s first thought was that she looked like everything he had ever imagined he wanted in a woman. His next thought was that there had never been a crueler illusion.

      When she saw him, her mouth fell open in a smile so brilliant he had to look away from it. Her bright blue eyes sparkled and beamed. Her joy caused blood to pound behind his eyes. So much pain. Her voice slipped like a slow snake into his ears and into his brain as she uttered his name reverently. He ignored her, but her arms came open as if she waited for him to embrace her. When he did not, she shook her head as if to castigate herself then dropped to her knees in a dejected wilt. She didn’t look at him. She just quietly admitted her surprise. “You know me.” Then, twisting her hands in her lap, she muttered, “Of course you know me.”

      Rush remained silent. There was nothing to say. For nearly four years, he had managed to escape her. He had known the situation wouldn’t be permanent when he sent her away. Now he knew he would never be rid of her again. “What happened to Elizabeth?” he asked more to himself than any other.

      “I don’t know who you mean. It is Bright Star you saved,” was the damning answer.

      “You two have met?” Jackson questioned, then bit his lip.

      Silly question.

      “You have to go,” Rush told her through clenched teeth.

      “You know I won’t.” Bright Star shook her head slowly with a determined set to her jaw. She appeared proud, regal even, as she remained on her knees before him, kneeling and defiant at once. “I’ve spent the last four years looking for you.”

      “Where have you been?” Rush breathed automatically. He hadn’t wanted to ask, but couldn’t seem to help it. He’d sent her to the other side of the earth. She’d been on a remote, nearly deserted island that had been occupied by a violent indigenous tribe that believed white flesh to be a sign of evil and women to be the bane of man, constantly trying to hold him from heaven. The nearest occupied land mass was three days away by boat. He’d left her there with nothing, not even clothing. She should have died. Yet here she was.

      She offered her hand to him. “See where I’ve been. See how I’ve come to be here.” she dared solemnly. Rush didn’t take it. Instead, he turned his back on her and worked to control a shudder.

      “Jackson, we need to talk,” Rush urged his brother.

      “But, Rush—”

      “Now.”

      Jackson knew the shock showed on his face. His quiet, introverted, СКАЧАТЬ