Skins & Needles (COMPLETE)

Crossing Lines Part 3

Arsen

I shifted, knowing Charlotte wouldn't be conscious for another twenty minutes, and turned to face the Llywelyn.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" I demanded, projecting my thoughts to her in the shifter field of communication with a snarl. "This is a blatant breach of property, Llywelyn. I should kill you."

"You've kidnapped a human!" she growled back. "Not only that, but my friend! You're clearly holding her here!"

"It's not like that," I groaned, continuing to circle her in my living room. "She overheard some shit with us and the Nathairs, and Thane shot her. We saved her, and are holding her until we're sure she won't blab anything."

The Llywelyn, who I had surmised was Charlotte's friend Ryanne, faltered.

"She was shot?" she asked, her thoughts unsteady now. Worried.

"I told you." I let out a huff of frustration. "Can we continue this in human form? I don't want her to wake up and see..."

"She still doesn't know?" Ryanne asked, before glancing around and shifting into her human form. I followed.

"No," I snapped, scooping up my tattered clothes from the ground. Shifters got over the awkwardness of nudity after their first shifts, but I still needed to hide the evidence for when Charlotte awoke.

"That's good at least..." Ryanne's nose wrinkled then, and her face morphed to one of shock. "Her smell is all over you. What the hell were you doing before I busted in?"

"That's none of your business," I told her with a scowl as I worked to shove my spent clothes to the bottom of my trash bin.

"Hell yes it is!" she spat indignantly. "Charlotte doesn't know anything. She has also been through enough. She doesn't need her heart broken on top of it all."

Something she said reminded me of earlier, before Charlotte and I kissed, and I turned back to Ryanne. She was standing in my living room with her arms crossed, not to cover up, but in anger.

"You clearly care for her well-being," I began, and headed upstairs to find some new clothes. Ryanne let out a hiss of frustration but followed as I spoke. "I don't know much about her past, except that she has one, and that it wasn't good."

"That's an understatement," Ryanne muttered. She waited in my doorway while I dressed, watching me suspiciously.

"She got a call earlier," I sighed, reluctantly extending a small amount of trust towards the woman in Charlotte's interest.

"Go on."

"She wouldn't say who it was from, but she was crying when I got home, and her phone was smashed. She just referred to the person as 'him' and sounded terrified. Do you know anything about this?"

Ryanne's face had paled and she fidgeted in her place.

"Ryanne," I said, trying to get her to look at me. "Is Charlotte in danger?"

Ryanne was quiet for a moment, and I huffed and tossed her a t-shirt. She made a face, but pulled it on anyway and ran her hands through her hair.

"She..." she tried, before shaking her head. "I'm not becoming friends with you, wolf."

"I'm not asking you to," I told her honestly. "I am asking for Charlotte's sake."

"Why do you care?"

I looked away.

"Arsen," Ryanne gasped, and my eyes flicked back to hers. "Do you actually care for her?"

"More than I can let her know," I admitted. "With the way things are... You know."

"Damn," she muttered. "Well, in that case, she went through a lot to get away from this person. It was dangerous, and she left with the intent of never seeing him again. It was not on good terms, Arsen. If he finds her..." She shrugged. "I have no idea what he would do."

I thought for a long time about what to do. Realistically speaking, there wasn't anything I could do. I wasn't her boyfriend. I don't know if I was technically even able to call her my friend at this point. All I knew was, I cared about her. More than made sense. Even if I wasn't supposed to act upon it, that didn't mean I couldn't do anything at all.

"She's safe with me here," I thought aloud, "but I can't keep her here. She's only here for a few more days... Well, a few more now that she's been in the presence of a shifted. But still. A week at most. When she goes back to Phoenix, with all this about the Pass..."

"You can't justify keeping an eye on her," Ryanne finished. "But because she and I have been friends for a while, I can. More than you at least. They don't always ask me to patrol our piece of the Pass, anyway."

"Would you?" I looked up to see her watching me closely, and our eyes met for once with no animosity in our gazes.

"Of course."

Ancient enemies coming to a friendly agreement, all over one bubbly redhead.

"Thank you. I mean it."

"One thing before I go, though," Ryanne proposed, as she slipped off my t-shirt and stepped out the back door.

"Two things," I corrected. "You first."

"Okay... What were you doing before I broke in?"

I scoffed, doing my best to remember she only meant well.

"Something I won't let happen again," was all I allowed. "My turn. I'm sending the bill for my broken window to Cael. It's up to you to tell him why."

Ryanne stiffened at the sound of her leader's name, but she simply nodded, and then shifted, vanishing into the night before I could close the door behind her.

Charlotte was still asleep when I walked out front to check on her, but I knew she would be coming around soon. Until then, however, I could at least make her comfortable, and hope her fall didn't re-injure any ribs.

I scooped her up gently, and carried her to my bedroom.

---

I love how Arsen and Ryanne's dynamic evolves through this book. Coming together over shared concern for Char, reluctant enemies to friends... My fav.

I posted a long update on my Ko-Fi talking about some mental health struggles and postponing a few deadlines. S&N is one of those deadlines. It doesn't really change anything for my update schedule here, at least not for a little while, but I'm not going to rush myself through the last two chapters. I want to do them right, and will be working on S&N again when I'm back in the right headspace for it.

For now, I'll still be updating a few times a week, so no worries. Just wanted to keep y'all in the loop on the overall story :)

Happy reading!

-Haybails