by C. L. Parker
When the shower of sharp projectiles stopped, a hearty laugh bubbled up from deep within his diaphragm and erupted from his lips. He unfurled his body and stood tall and strong, unharmed and undeterred. Tori’s eyes widened and then narrowed to slits once she realized just how much he had been holding out on her. Dante could’ve kicked her ass during every single sparring match they’d had, but he didn’t. He had let her lead, just as he had been born to do.
“What the hell are you? Some kind of titanic freak?”
“The Titanic sank. I assure you, it will take more than a bloody iceberg to send me to an early grave.”
Dante dug deep inside himself, pulling on every microbead of Light that was his genetic makeup and focusing it on a central location. The blood in his veins warmed as the charge of energy kicked into overdrive and vibrated so intently his teeth rattled and the tiny hairs on his body stood on end.
“I’m the Guardian of the Guardian, Angel. I believe you’ve underestimated exactly what that means. Partly my fault, of course. I might have failed to mention that besides the circumstances of our births and our markings, there was another reason my father figured me to be your protector. I can do things no other Guardian can.”
Dante cupped his hands together to gather a ball of Light and then pulled them apart, manipulating the energy until it elongated like a band between them. He swirled his hands around, twisting and pulling the band until it looked like neon taffy on a stretching machine.
Tori’s eyes widened and she watched him in awe even as she took a step back. Impressed though she was, her anger was still palpable. Apparently, defeat was a very hard pill for the Guardian of Mankind to swallow.
“You lied to me about what you can do. That is so not cool, Dante. Not cool at all.”
“I didn’t lie. I was being a gentleman. Forgive me, but I don’t get off on beating up on women.”
“Then why do it now?”
“Because I have to win. It’s the only way to get anything out of you.” Dante cocked his head to the side and regarded her. “We’re supposed to be a team, yet you’re keeping secrets. Secrets that I’m sure are pretty damned important or you wouldn’t feel the need to keep them even from me.”
Tori’s hands fisted at her sides. “It’s my business.”
“And you are my business.”
“I didn’t ask to be.”
“No, you didn’t, but you are nonetheless. Now, tell me . . . what have you been keeping from me?”
Despite the show of power and strength from her opponent, Tori shook her head and took a defensive fighting stance. “You haven’t won yet.”
Oh, but the woman was stubborn.
“Have it your way then, Angel. But know that this is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you.”
Dante stepped forward and the band of energy lashed out like a cracking whip to wrap around Tori’s ankles. He pulled back, retracting the band and knocking her onto her rear. Without wasting momentum, he tugged, dragging her across the floor. Tori flailed and grabbed at the mat, but her efforts were fruitless. Once she was close enough for him to pounce, Dante withdrew the energy back into himself. It had only been a threat, a show of force that he would never actually use on the one he was destined to protect.
Tori took advantage of his kindness and swept Dante’s leg, forcing him to join her on the mat. He hadn’t even landed completely when she slammed her forearm across his back with the strength of ten men. Dante was pretty sure he heard the cracking of bone, but it was hard to tell when so much adrenaline was pumping through his system. One thing was for sure: he was definitely going to require a trip to the hot spring to work out the soreness that would be left in the wake of that blow.
Tori stood, but Dante grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her back down to the floor, forcing the breath from her lungs. Unable to avoid injuring the tenacious little brat while simultaneously winning the match, Dante pushed back his inner hero and went for the kill.
Using the grip he had on her ankle, he flipped Tori onto her stomach, scrambled on top of her, and grabbed her wrist, twisting the attached arm behind her back. She was stuck with one arm pinned beneath her and her legs rendered immobile with the interlocking of his own. That didn’t stop Tori from trying to buck him off with her hips, but Dante pressed his own forward, using his weight to hold her in place. It was a position that might have been quite enjoyable under a completely different circumstance and had they been naked, but they weren’t.
Dante leaned forward to put his mouth to her ear, his increasing weight causing Tori to writhe uncomfortably beneath him.
“The word is ‘uncle,’ Angel. Do try not to choke on it.”
“I am not admitting defeat!”
Dante pulled up on her wrist, stretching the muscles and tendons at her shoulder to maximum capacity. He hoped it would be enough because any more and something would definitely snap under the pressure.
Tori’s head reared back and she screamed out in agony. “Argh! Uncle!”
Satisfied and relieved that she didn’t force his hand further, Dante released his hold on her wrist, but remained in position otherwise. Tori fell limp with her cheek smashed against the mat and her heavy breaths stirring the hair in her face. She looked defeated, and Dante didn’t take pride in that fact. He had watched her every day since her arrival and had seen her bloom like a flower in spring and then wither under the harsh chill of a frozen winter over the past few days. This win was not a win at all, but it was necessary.
Dante maneuvered himself so that he could flip Tori over to face him. Strands of hair were stuck to her face, and her skin was tinged pink with exertion and probably a bit of anger as well. There might have even been some bruising to her chin, but she still looked every bit as angelic as the first time he had ever seen her.
“I’m sorry to have been so brutish, but failure was not an option. Like I said, I had to win.”
“Why? Is making love to me such a horrendous thought?”
“No, quite the opposite, but were we to have sex right now, we wouldn’t be making love. All it would be is a fuck to satiate your desperate need for something else, and I don’t want that for us. I’m not saying it would be horrendous, just not right. However, not knowing the cause of your fears so that I can protect you from them is indeed a horrific thought.”
Dante’s mouth suddenly became dry, and he swallowed hard to force the question he wasn’t really sure how to ask from his throat. Maybe he was just as nervous about finding out the answer to his question as Tori was about giving it up. “What are you so afraid of, Angel?”
Tears began to well up in her eyes and she turned her head away in shame. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”
Dante took her chin between his fingers and forced her to look at him. “Have a little faith in me.”
Tori closed her eyes and the tears were forced over the dam to spill into the hairline that framed her face. “My nightmares. They terrify me.”
“I’m aware of that. I thought you said my sleeping with you keeps them away?”
Tori nodded. “It does, but we’re not asleep all the time.”
Dante shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
She inhaled deeply, like she was steeling herself for the secret she was about to reveal. “I see them . . . while I’m awake.”
“Who?”
“Not who. What. My nightmares. They’re coming to life.”
“How do you mean?”
Tori pushed her fingers through her hair in frustration. “I mean, when we were in the cemetery, a very bony, very dead hand broke out of the ground and grabbed my friggin’ ankle. And when you found me at the park, I was standing in the middle of a bloodbath, a massacre. Everyone . . . everyone was dead. And not just dead, but mutilated beyond recognition. That’s what I mean.”
Dante was shocked, understandably so. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the horrific picture she was painting. “How is that possible?”
Tori thr
ew her hands into the air. “I don’t know, Dante! They’re there, and they’re real, but when you touch me, they disappear. And don’t ask me how that’s possible, because I don’t know the answer to that either.”
She nudged at him and he rolled off her, allowing her to sit up.
“And that’s why you haven’t wanted to go anywhere?”
Tori nodded. Finally, the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place, but the resulting picture definitely wasn’t something they could handle on their own.
“We have to tell our parents. They’ll know what to do.”
Tori spun around on him. “No, Dante! You can’t! If my parents find out about this, my mother’s going to freak out and put us on the first plane back home, and I can’t be away from you. You’re the only thing keeping me halfway sane at the moment. I can’t . . .”
She shook her head furiously with an agonizing plea in her eyes. Full on hysterics were just seconds away.
“I can’t be without you. Please, Dante. I need you.”
Dante gathered her up in his arms and held her tight. “Okay. It’s going to be all right, Angel. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. We’ll do it your way for now, but if the bloody shit starts to hit the fan, we’re going to have to bring in reinforcements. I won’t risk losing you.”
Spilling her guts to Dante, or anyone else for that matter, definitely wasn’t something Tori imagined she’d be doing during her summer vacation abroad, but that was exactly what she had done. Oddly, she felt better, like the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders now that she had let someone in on her secret and no longer had to bear it alone.
True, she hadn’t told Dante the finer details, like the fact that a man who was a figment of her imagination had come to life and was now apparently stalking her, or that demons played a major role in her waking nightmares, or even that she didn’t feel safe in her own sanctuary because of the mysterious wall that had encroached farther still upon her beautiful meadow until it was nearly nonexistent. Still, he knew enough to make her feel safe.
Now, how was she going to survive without him? When the summer was over and she had to go back home, how would her addled mind even begin to deal with that? Having always been self-sufficient, had she made the situation worse by allowing herself to become so dependent on someone else?
“So, I was thinking,” Dominic’s voice interrupted Tori’s thoughts, having found her in the garden once again.
Per their usual, Dante had allowed her to shower first after their morning training session, and it had become habit for her to go to the garden to capture her thoughts in her journal while she waited for him. Sitting among the paradise created by his gift of the Light somehow made her feel closer to him, and thus, safer. She closed her journal before turning to face her father.
“Uh-oh. What did I do wrong this time?” she asked, leery.
Dominic looked taken aback. “Nothing. Why? Is there something going on that I should be concerned about?”
Tori shook her head and smiled up at him, lying through her teeth. “Nope. Nothing at all.” She was so going to go to Hell for that. “So, what were you thinking, father mine?”
“Uh-huh,” he said with a wary look, but apparently decided to let it go. “I thought it might be nice if we go grab some lunch and do some catching up. What do you say?”
Spending some time with her father was definitely something she wanted to do. They had always been close, and she missed that. But spending time with him out in public, surrounded by a gazillion people, all potential meat suits for the body snatching demons? Not such a good idea.
“Um, I think Dante and I already have plans today. Rain check?”
Dominic looked wounded. “Is it too much to ask you to spend a little bit of time with your old man? Come on, Tor, I’ve hardly even seen you since we landed in London. I miss our talks. Hell, I just miss you.”
How could she say no to that? Especially when he looked so hurt. Besides, Dante would be there, and as long as he was, her nightmares couldn’t make the hop into reality—or, semi-reality. Whatever.
“You know what? You’re right. I’m sure Dante and I can postpone our plans for the day.” She stood and walked over to Dominic, stretching up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “I’d love to spend some time with you, and I know Dante would, too. Just let me grab him, and we’ll meet you out front.”
The wound Dante had inflicted to her midsection earlier still hadn’t completely healed and she felt a throb of pain, but she managed to keep from groaning. Still, she turned around quickly to keep her father from seeing the wince on her face.
Dominic put his hand on her arm as she started to turn away. Tori looked down at his hand and then up at him, confused.
“Dante? No, baby girl. You’ve been spending every waking moment with him, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but I’d like to have you all to myself for just one afternoon.”
“Oh. Okaaaay,” she drawled out, while on the inside, her brain was running amok with “oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”
“Good,” he said, kissing her forehead. “I’ll meet you out front in ten?”
Tori stared straight ahead as she thought about what it meant to be out in public without her security blanket, the only person capable of keeping her nightmares at bay. Thankfully, part of her brain had switched to autopilot and she managed to nod in answer to her father’s question.
She must have been standing there in shock for more than a moment because when she finally snapped out of it and turned around, Dominic was already gone.
Dante. Tori sprinted toward the house and up to the third floor. She had to tell him what was going on and see if there was anything they could do, even though, logically, she knew there wasn’t. She was just going to have to endure the horror she was sure awaited her, and hope against all hope that whatever damage the demons inflicted wouldn’t be permanent, as she suspected.
Somehow, she had unleashed the demons of her nightmares onto the world, and she didn’t even know how she had done it. Some Guardian of Mankind she had become.
Dante had looked as concerned about the recent turn of events as she, although, to his credit, he had tried really hard to put on a brave face. He had forced a smile and held her tight, assuring her that everything would be okay; he’d figure something out. In the meantime, he wanted Tori to go with Dominic and try to enjoy her time with her father. Besides, maybe nothing would happen.
Maybe. But Tori wasn’t getting her hopes up.
As if giving the demons an open invitation, Tori found herself sitting at table outside the busy pub her father had picked out, which just so happened to be on the corner of a very busy intersection. She might as well have stood up and shouted to the whole world, “Come on, you demon bastards! Hit me with all you’ve got!”
Tori had tried to talk her father into sitting inside instead, but he smacked that suggestion down with a, “But it’s so nice out today, and it’s too crowded in there.”
It was too crowded out here as well; the traffic jam to her right told her as much. Mothers and nannies carting the kiddies off for an outing, business men and women trying desperately to get back to work on time from lunch, and who knew who else doing who knew what. For just a moment, Tori allowed herself to wonder what their lives were like. Sure, they probably had a mountain of problems they were dealing with, like maybe suffering a tyrant of a boss, battling some sort of addiction, wondering how they were going to pay the mortgage this month, or even worrying over a sick loved one, but the cold hard truth of the matter was they were the lucky ones.
Their demons were nothing like hers. But had she unknowingly projected hers on them as well?
“Something on your mind, baby girl?” Dominic asked, dragging her from her thoughts. With a pointed glance, he nodded toward the leg she was bouncing feverishly under the table.
“Oh, um . . . sorry,” she said, trying in vain to stop the movement. She was anxious, whi
ch was understandable since Dante wasn’t around to keep the demons away, but her father didn’t know that, and she wasn’t about to fill him in on the cause behind her anxiousness either.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just need to go to the bathroom, but I can wait until we get home.”
Dominic wouldn’t question her cop out because he knew how she felt about public restrooms.
The waiter brought their fish and chips and sat a fresh beer in front of Dominic, and then he sat one in front of Tori as well. Once he was gone, Dominic leaned forward and winked conspiratorially. “Don’t tell your mother.”
“Speaking of your mother—” He sat back and looked around the table. “Where the hell is the ketchup?” He called the waiter back over to ask for his missing condiments, developing a tic in his jaw when the poor guy turned his nose up at his American request. Once he had ketchup and tartar sauce in front of him, Dominic took a moment to recall where he had left off. “Your mom, she told me about your little outburst the other day.”
What outburst?
“I figure since I’m also to blame for the decision to keep our reason for bringing all of us to London from you, you might want a chance to unload on me as well.”
Oh, that.
Tori sighed. She was over it, somewhat anyway, and had no desire to rehash it. Mostly because she was mentally exhausted, but also because her father made it too hard to be mad at him. She was daddy’s little girl, after all.
“You owe her an apology, don’t you think?” Dominic continued, popping a fat fry drenched in ketchup into his mouth.
Tori balked. So much for daddy’s little girl.
“An apology? You think I owe her an apology?”
“Yes, I do. You have to admit you were kind of hard on her. She’s only ever had your best interest at heart. That goes for both of us. Besides, like I said, I’m also to blame. You didn’t even give her a chance to explain.”
No, she hadn’t. She was way too pissed to let Kerrigan get a word in edgewise.
