Riley’s Regret
To all those out there who are suffering in silence.
n retrospect, maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to draw smiley faces on all the targets at the coalition firing range. Not only had it pissed off the felines, but the Hawks had failed to find the humor in it as well, which just puzzled Riley, because who didn’t like an emoticon every now and again? Even if it was at the end of a rifle site.
Yet, like so many other things in his life, he’d found out the hard way that his actions had yet again left him on the butt side of trouble. So after he’d been chewed out by both the feline and Hawk leaders, Riley had done what any other civil-minded Eagle shifter who was in the hot seat would do—he sneaked out of headquarters.
He’d gone to the one place where he could find peace. The one place where he didn’t feel like a freak, reject, underachiever or disappointment, and that was the fountain in the center of the local shopping mall.
As strange as it sounded, that place had the ability to calm him down no matter how upset he became. It may not look like much—just a small 1
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stone circular pool with a tiny cherub in the center, but it did Riley more good than a thousand Dr. Phils ever could.
He stretched out, belly down, across one curve of the wall encompassing the water. All around him, shoppers rushed by. Humans who were all blissfully unaware of what truly lurked amongst them or how awful the world really was. Riley almost hated them for the ignorance.
He let out a sigh as he rested his cheek on the cool stone and skimmed his fingertips over the surface of the water. He’d give anything to go back to that world again. The one where he’d just been another human and didn’t know he really was an Eagle shifter and not to have to live with the fact that a whole world of nasty waited out there and that most of them wanted to literally throw his sorry ass into a gold cage.
The water felt cooler than normal. Odd, since as far as Riley could tell, the weather outside hadn’t changed. So why should the fountain inside the mall be any different?
“We really need to go,” Noah admonished in a strained voice.
Riley gazed at Noah’s reflection in the water.
Just a bit taller than him and with black hair, the Jaguar shifter had been one of the few who Riley could really call a friend. Noah now wore a worried, harried expression as his gaze darted 2
Riley’s Regret
from side-to-side. Riley almost wanted to snark at Noah that if he were so worried about getting caught, then maybe he shouldn’t have tagged along for the field trip. In the end, Riley held his tongue. He knew the only reason why Noah was there was because of the deep-seated loyalty they had for each other.
“Just give me five more minutes and then I swear we’ll head back,” Riley promised as he continued to trail fingers over the water’s surface.
Riley carefully avoided gazing at his own reflection since he’d never liked what he found there. While many went out of their way to tell him how beautiful and special he was, he just didn’t see it. To him, he just appeared to be scrawny. His hair was too pale and unremarkable.
His eyes were a dull blue. His mouth was too thin.
His nose too narrow. In other words, there was nothing spectacular about him at all.
Which probably was the reason why he got a thrill out of piercing his body. It was the one way he found where he could truly control his appearance and how others viewed him.
Numerous parts of his body sported hardware. He currently had one on his bottom lip, one on the side of his nose, another on his right eyebrow, and that was just to name a few. That same thought process went into his hairstyles. His latest style, gelling his blond locks into a faux hawk. As far as 3
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Riley was concerned, if it made him look odd or different, then sign him up.
“Why do you hate home so much? It sure as hell beats living in that gold cage the slaves held you in,” Noah snapped.
“I know. I just need to get away once in a while.
Sometimes, I feel as if headquarters is just another prison.”
Noah’s eyes softened with pity. Damn it if Riley didn’t despise having that emotion directed at him, too.
“You know, Mitchell is only doing it to protect you. The slavers would just love to get you again—”
“—because I’m an eagle shifter and we’re so rare that I’m worth a lot on the black market,” Riley finished dully.
God, but if he had to hear that one more time, he was going to toss himself to the Ravens just so he could get it over with. Noah crouched and began to run his hand down Riley’s back.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” Riley replied, still dragging his fingers over the water.