Olivia released his hand and withdrew a step. “What?”
He hadn’t meant to broach the topic that way, and bowed his head. “My apologies, I didn’t mean to frighten you. Noah Morning Star, he is Fevered. His ability is one of healing. He saved Jo when she was taken by the Fever, and I’ve seen him heal bullet wounds—impossible damage. I don’t know if he can heal your eyes, but perhaps he can.”
When he tried to catch her fingers, she pulled away again. Her slender hands trembled and her knuckles whitened on the walking stick. “I don’t miss seeing. I’ve never ‘seen’ anything. I suppose not the way you do. This is who I am. Do you want me to see?” The stumbling note in her voice cut him.
“I want only for you to be happy.” He’d never meant anything more in his life. “Happy and safe.” Beautiful. She was so beautiful. “It’s a possibility, one we can explore…”
“I don’t want to talk about that anymore.” With a shiver, she retreated further, pacing away from him.
“Olivia…”
“No.” With a shake of her head, and despite her obvious distress, Olivia didn’t waver. “I don’t want to discuss that. Tell me about the colonel. Tell me what he did to you.”
“We need to discuss this. If you can see, you can…”
“I can what? I can leave? I can go have some life somewhere else? It’s what you’re working your way up to telling me again, isn’t it? This…” She waved a hand. “This confession, the truth you’re telling me so I will walk away and leave you. For some reason, you have it in your head that once I know it all, once you have told me of your life, I will wish to leave. You want to soften it and comfort yourself with the idea that I can see, if your Fevered friend can heal what is wrong with me, everything will be fine.” She spun away and her stick struck the earth as she started to walk away from him.
Ice slid through his veins like a river bursting its banks. “There is nothing wrong with you.” When she didn’t stop, he followed and took hold of her arm. Pulling her around, he trapped her close. “Don’t walk away from me.”
“That was what you wanted, isn’t it?” Her scowl deepened. “You want me to leave.”
“When the hell did I say I wanted you to leave?” Hadn’t he opened up to her? Hadn’t he given her the answers she’d demanded? Hell they were alone in the middle of nowhere, in a place that wasn’t safe or secure because he’d been trying to prove his good faith to her.
“When you sent me to the ranch, when you stayed away and even on the ride here—you told me everything because I needed to know. And under it all was the certainty that once I know the absolute truth, I will go.” She didn’t struggle against his hold. “Now you dangle this promise of sight as if it should be the consolation prize I grasp in lieu of you.”
Closing his eyes, Jason struggled to bring his emotions back under control. But the dam had burst and they refused to go back into the box. He needed to calm his mind, approach the issue rationally because she was right. If he could give her sight, then when she chose to leave and abandon the madness that was life amongst Fevered, she would be safe.
“You can’t tell me I’m wrong.” Something in her voice changed. Opening his eyes, he stared down and blinked as her face wavered. Cupping his cheek, she stroked her thumb over his mouth, tracing the outline of his lips. “You are so certain that I can’t see you, even when you say I am the only one who does. I have loved you since I was old enough to know what the word meant. I will never leave you. I left for school only because your father and mine convinced me it was the best way to be your wife.”
The shock of it rocked him to his core. His father, the cagey old bastard, had set a trap for him and Jason had walked right into it.
“You can tell me you want me and you want me to stay. Or you can say that I am a little girl who has dreamed too large and that you don’t want me. But you have to be certain of what you want because I’m not leaving you unless you pick me up and make me go.” The corner of her mouth turned upward. “You should be warned that no matter where you send me, unless I truly believe you don’t want me, I will come back. I will find you again.”
“You really do love me.” He shuddered and bowed his head again, resting his forehead against hers. “You shouldn’t, you know.”
“I don’t care about should. I only care about you. I don’t like hurting you to make you see how foolish you are behaving. You are a grown man, Jason.” Chastisement had never sounded so sweet.
“I love you,” he told her, admitting it to himself. “I know it’s wrong and…”
“Why is it wrong?” Wonder lit her face, wonder and curiosity.
“Because I’m not good for you.”
Her nose wrinkled. “Who says? You? You’re too foolish to be listened to. Who else says?”
Laughter, raw and rusty broke free. He pressed his mouth to the tip of her impudent little nose and then placed a second, far sweeter kiss to her lips. “I want the world for you.”
“You are my world.” She let go of the walking stick and fisted her hands into his shirt. “Nothing you say to me will change that.”
It was the last thing he should do. The selfish thing, but he couldn’t fight her. Not anymore. “Will you marry me, Olivia? Will you let me make you my wife? I cannot promise you an easy life, but I can promise to make it the best one I can.”
Her smile bloomed brighter than the noonday sun. “I promised you a long time ago, I would marry you. I’m glad you’ve finally seen sense.”
“You are a terrible influence,” he teased her and pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her. “I fear I shall come to great ruin with you.”
“But you won’t be alone.” It was a fierce promise. “Ever again. Neither of us will be.”
“No,” he agreed, and stared at the destruction behind her. It would change everything that he needed to do, but he wouldn’t let her go. Not now. Not ever. “We won’t be alone. You still need to know things…”
“I’m here. Tell me everything.” She squeezed him. “We’ll figure it out together.”
His chest ached, but his soul lightened. Cradling her close, he spelled out his sins. Every job. Every crime. Every murder. He told all of it to her.
She never let him go.
Olivia, Darkness Falls
Jason hadn’t lied about how terrible some of the things were that he had done. With every sentence, every description, he fed her fury toward the man who should have looked after him rather than lay upon him such a terrible burden. More than once she’d had to bite down on the inside of her lip until she tasted the faint coppery hint of blood. His muscles flexed where they held her to him, and she detected the tremble as he shook. Once he began telling her, he couldn’t stop.
She died a little each time he described killing someone. The cool, impersonal words he used might have fooled him—but she heard the black despair closing in with every execution. A part of her wished he would stop, though she locked her jaw against voicing the request. If he could survive that nightmare, then she could listen to it.
“And he was the last,” Jason said in a dead voice she barely recognized. “I didn’t kill Cobb, but I might as well have. Had I not fallen into their hands, had I not thought I could beat Miller at his own game, I might have gotten free sooner. He wouldn’t have had to sacrifice himself to get me free.”
“Jason, they tortured you. You just said you spent every ounce of energy you had to keep that monster out of your mind, and they beat you regularly. He was always attacking you, you said he kept trying to dig into you and control you.” Shock didn’t describe the feelings tumbling through her. It made her sick to think of someone hurting him over and over again.
“It doesn’t change the fact that I can kill a man without ever touching him. But I didn’t kill them.”
“You wanted information about their plans and you said you tried. What held you back?” Because something had to have. The utter blackness floating beneath his words gaped like a giant maw he
ld a note of fear.
“Nothing,” he said. It was a lie, but she didn’t think it was intentional. Digging her fingers into his back, she tried to put the pieces together.
“You said that your brother and Miller had similar gifts…” She waited.
“Yes, and no. Miller was twisted. Insane. Something in the man broke away a long time ago, if it had ever been there. Kid isn’t like that. Messed up, yes. Confused. Absolutely. My brother isn’t evil. Miller was evil.” The automatic defense of his brother managed to warm his frosty tone.
“Yet, they were similar enough that you recognized what Miller was doing.” Was she truly having this conversation? Did she even know enough to make sense of what was arguably the greatest madness she’d ever heard?
“Yes.” Jason swallowed around the word. The wild beat of his heart slowed some now that he finished speaking. The temperatures around them had plummeted, as though winter wanted to reclaim spring in its icy grip, but Jason’s arms around her kept her warm.
“Is it possible that you didn’t strike him because he was so like your brother? Not his mannerisms or his actions, but his ability?” Would it have made it harder for Jason to react to him if he’d been comparing him to his younger sibling? Though he’d spoke of him rarely, she’d always heard the affection in his voice and the pride. Could he have hurt someone who reminded him, even in some small way, of Kid?
He didn’t answer immediately; instead he stroked his hand against her hair and began to pick out the pins holding it up. When it all tumbled free, she sighed at the way he began to comb his fingers through the loose mass. It relaxed her and the hard tension in his body began to bleed away.
“I don’t know,” he admitted finally. “I want to say no, but when Kid attacked me—”
“He attacked you?” That startled her.
“He was upset, and rightfully so, angry and out of control. He lashed out at me because he needed a place to pour his anger. I didn’t stop him then either. The only way I really know how to stop someone is to hurt them.”
“You won’t hurt your brothers.” She knew that as well as she knew his name. “If that other man, that evil one, reminded you even in part of Kid…I think it would make you hesitate.”
“Hesitation can get you killed.” He sounded angry with himself. “I can’t afford to hesitate again.”
“You can’t afford to keep killing.” She rubbed her cheek against his shirt and he gave her hair a light tug.
“If it is necessary, I will do it. If it keeps you safe, if it keeps my family safe, then it’s necessary.”
“What about what it does to you?” Challenging him after he’d already conceded so much to her might not be wise, but someone had to make him see what he did to himself. It fell to Olivia because he was hers.
He took another long time to answer, and she thought he might have, had her stomach not growled. Jason withdrew a half step. “You’re hungry.” It wasn’t a question. “I should have set out the food Miss Annabeth packed for us when we arrived.” The last came out riding a self-deprecating note. “My manners are appalling.”
That he could even bring up his manners at a time like this made her laugh and Olivia released him to reclaim her walking stick, but he beat her to it and then wrapped an arm around her to keep her close as they walked. “Truthfully, I wasn’t all that hungry before…” She paused, a different sensation prickling across her awareness.
“Before?” Jason prompted.
“Shh,” she strained to listen and he stilled completely next to her. “Someone’s coming.”
Chapter 9
Jason, Death
He studied the landscape around them and shifted to free his gun arm while he kept a hand on Olivia at the same time. Shorty paused mid-graze to glance up and Jason used him as a gauge for what direction their company came from. No one had any reason to be out here, so either it was a scouting force from the new fort or someone deliberately looking for him.
“We’re going toward the woods,” he informed Olivia. “It’s fairly dense in there. How well can you navigate with that walking stick if I have to stash you behind some trees?”
“Well enough,” she told him. He paused and studied her. She’d gone pale, but she’d done that when he’d told her about the work Stanley had him do. At some point, she’d also bitten her lip hard enough to make it bleed. But her voice was steady and her hands didn’t shake.
“Good.” He glanced in the distance, but all he saw was a horse—a saddleless, riderless horse cutting across the field. Shorty snorted and stamped his feet restlessly, but he didn’t run out to meet the animal.
Halting their path toward the woods, Jason froze. Cody had to be nearby. That he didn’t see the wolf was a good sign, but a single horse? Roaming free? That was the distraction. He swung his attention away from the open area and looked to the woods.
Blade could hide in plain sight. “Olivia,” he kept his voice soft. “What else do you hear?”
She turned her face toward him and the sunlight turned her eyes pure silver. “The wind. A horse running. Another stomping his feet. Brush. The crackle wood or leaves, like someone moving. Grass rustling. Your heartbeat. It’s very fast.”
Exhaling a slow breath, he forced his breathing to regulate. His gaze fixed on the woods and he shifted so he was between her and it. “What else?”
The curtain around his mind was thick and he’d been in a bubble of silence all day. So attuned to Olivia, he hadn’t really paid attention to the mental blindness. It had been a blessing, but this was his fear. He had to see past her to what was out there. If it were Blade, the man had patience and he could and would out wait any search. His skill lay in striking when a person least expected it.
“I hear someone else breathing.” Olivia’s lips didn’t even move and the words were so soft, he half thought he’d imagined her saying it. That jerked his attention and he watched her mouth closely. “Someone is breathing, to my right and they have to be close if I can hear them this well.”
Disappointment girded his relief and both vanished under the icy rage crackling through him. He stared in the direction she’d indicated and saw nothing, but trees, grass, and shadows. Urging Olivia behind him, he tucked her hand into the back of his gun belt releasing her only when he felt her fingers curl and grip. Bless her, but she went mute and moved with him.
Movement.
Olivia tugged his belt and pressed two fingers to his left side. He agreed, whatever was there moved left and he locked onto the ripple in the shadows. Indistinct perhaps, but definitely movement. He ripped aside the curtain around his mind, dropping away any pretense of a shield. It was a strain, but foreign thoughts immediately crashed into him.
Fuck. He knows I’m here... The split-second decision preceded the man’s rush. Everything slowed down to the space between one heartbeat and the next. Three things flicked across Jason’s mind.
The man was carried a gun and a knife. It was indeed Blade, a scar bisected his face from his temple to his lip where someone had laid him open in a fight. He had every intention of killing Jason and having his ‘fun’ with Olivia. Blade raised the gun and pulled the trigger. Jason sliced into his mind, taking control and shutting down his ability to draw breath and stopping his heart.
The air in front of him hardened and ice shattered. The force of the bullet slamming home into his shoulder drove Jason into Olivia. Her scream coupled with the pain distracted him and he staggered. Blade surged upwards, his gun hand shaking—but Jason focused, staying with him this time until the man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he toppled sideways.
Dead.
“Jason!” Olivia tried to hold him up as he continued to stumble backwards. His lungs burned as he sucked in a painful breath and his shoulder throbbed. She collapsed beneath him, struggling to hold his weight and Cody was suddenly there, a sandy colored wolf racing toward him matched by a black one. Mariska.
Cody had brought his mate.
Good. Olivia wo
uld need someone to look after her. The pain in his shoulder radiated down his arm and his heart struggled against the command he fed into the other mind. Normally he pulled out right at the brink of death, but the distraction cost him seconds and he’d failed to disengage.
“Jason.” Olivia’s face swam across his vision and her dark hair surrounded him. The sun behind her hair cast a halo around her and her silver eyes shimmered with unshed tears. An angel.
“Cody, Masterson worked with Blade. Make sure he isn’t near.” The sandy wolf must have heard him because he and the black wolf raced off.
“You’re bleeding.” Olivia’s hand closed over his shoulder and Jason hissed out a breath.
“It’s a scratch,” he told her, but he didn’t try to sit up. Spots danced in front of his eyes and she shimmered. “Stay down until the wolves come back.”
“Wolves?” Olivia scowled. “I don’t care about the wolves right now. You can’t die.”
“I won’t,” he told her, projecting a confidence he didn’t feel. The throbbing had begun to echo in his chest and daggers of pain dug into his skull. He’d stayed with another through their death before and he’d blacked out for hours after. He fought the urge to pass out now, but it took everything he had to stay conscious. “Are you hurt?”
Focus on her. Yes, focus on her. Make sure she was okay. He’d stopped the bullet, but she’d been behind him.
“No, I’m not hurt…I’m scared and I will be very angry with you if you die.” One of her tears splashed down and struck his cheek.
“Then I shall do my utmost to make sure you are not angry with me. I know better than to anger my wife-to-be.” It hurt to breathe.
“The wolves are coming back,” Olivia sniffed, but she never took her hand off the wound as though she could hold him together with her grip. Maybe she could. Darkness crowded the edges of his vision, and the world began to gray. “We have to get you to a doctor.”
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