by Terri Pray
“Tracking implants? Are they insane? No mage or witch will stand for this, and I can just imagine what the shifters will say. This is going to fuel the biggest explosion this planet has ever seen.”
“And what are we supposed to do, refuse?”
“Of course.”
“So just disobey the law when it’s passed and wait for them to round us up and force us to accept it.” Gem arched one well-groomed eyebrow. “You’re not thinking this through.”
“Well, no, of course not. I’m just at a loss of what to do. We can’t sit back and let them push us around, and if we don’t comply we’re playing directly into their hands.”
“Then what do you suggest? We’re forbidden to use our magic to protect ourselves, or even help our friends without their specific request. Even then we’re walking a fine line.”
A line Hailey knew all too well that she’d just committed herself to.
Chapter Nine
“He’s cheating on me.” Karol didn’t look up from her mug of tea, her feet scuffing back and forth over the tiles. “I’m not sure how long it’s been going on but I can’t ignore the facts any longer. God, I’ve been a fool. I guess I always knew but I kept telling myself that if he went that far he’d leave me. I mean, why would he need me at home if he had someone else to turn to?”
Hailey wanted to reach out and pull Karol into her arms to tell her it would all work out but until she knew what chances they had of dealing with Brian it would’ve only offered Karol a false sense of hope. Or worse, it would have backfired and her old friend would have warned the idiot. She trusted Karol, but she didn’t trust the woman’s self esteem and mindset. “He’s been at it for a while, I think.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me now, nothing would. He kept going out at odd hours, day and night; it was work, his friends, then he stopped giving me any reason at all. When I asked then he’d growl at me, or tell me it was none of my concern. Last night he took it one step further. He lost it. I’ve never seen him as angry as I did last night. Maybe I’m wrong but I think he wanted to hit me.” Her pale fingers clutched at the mug, shaking as she tried to take a small sip.
“Did you ever ask him if he was cheating?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I’m imagining it. That’s what he tells me. After he calmed down this morning, I asked him about his show of temper. That’s when he looked at me, smiled and claimed he’d never have hit me, and I’m reading far more into his words than any intelligent woman should. But, I know what he said. No matter how hard I tried to wipe it out I can still recall every ugly word he threw at me.”
“What did he say?” She had to know the answer, to know just how far Brian had gone. It hurt, just seeing the look in her eyes, the catch in Karol’s voice, the way her fingers tightened further about the mug. Goddess, if there had been but another way of knowing.
“That he had little use for me, he had others he could go to.” Karol glanced up long enough that Hailey could see the tears threatening to spill down over her drawn features. “He said that and then left, walked out, didn’t return until noon today and then only to tell me what a fool I was.”
“You’re not a fool, Karol. Don’t let him get to you like that.” She tried to keep the growl from her words, but failed. “I’m not upset at you, sorry. I’m trying not to let my anger out. It’s not you, it’s him. You’ve never been a fool; don’t let him call you that, and don’t you dare start believing his words.”
“I am. I’ve let this go on far too long. I’ve known, even without him saying anything; I’ve known for some time. All the clues were right in my face; he made sure of that. The perfume, late nights, and the times he hasn’t come home at all; it all makes so much sense in hindsight. The way he gets when he has to stay with me or the kids overnight. Then he started to change even more. He won’t even stay home when the children are sick now. No matter how much I plead. He’s barely home but one or two nights a week, and now he stays in the spare room. Unless he wants something.” The base of the mug rattled against the tabletop in the moment before she set it down fully.
“Karol…”
“No, there’s more. I have to get this out before I clam up completely. When I tried last night, there was such a darkness about him, an anger ‑‑ untamed anger blazing within his eyes. He shook me, so hard I forgot to breathe, then when he let go I saw him raise his hand ready to strike. I really thought he would hit me. What stopped him I don’t know and when I mentioned it he told me I was wrong, I had imagined it all.”
She wanted to kill him, feel his breath end under her fingers as she choked the life from his stinking corpse. Brian wasn’t a man; nothing more than a thing, a foul spirit that covered itself in the skin of a human being. Foul, cruel, dark to the core, he needed to learn a lesson that would prevent him from chasing after any more women, stop him from using any other women.
They called some of her people monsters, but men like Brian were the real demons in the night. He had become the boogieman that should have never come out of the closet.
“Why wasn’t I enough for him? What did I do to anger fate so much?” The question came as a choked sob, all the guilt, the doubt and self-blame spilled into those few words. “Hailey, you talk with the Goddess, don’t you? Hasn’t she warned you what I’m doing wrong?”
“It’s not you. You have to see that. It’s him.”
“It doesn’t make sense. There must be something I’m doing that’s causing this, or he’d not go to other women.” Tears slipped down Karol’s cheeks, her words half swallowed by soft gulps for breath.
“You’ve always been enough for him. It’s Brian who’s at fault, not you.” Hailey reached out, taking Karol’s hand. She wanted to yell at Karol that it had nothing to do with fate; she’d walked into this with open eyes and now was paying the price. But the moment the words whispered at the back of her mind she clamped down on them. No matter what, her friend didn’t deserve to have that flung in her face. “You’re the closest thing to a sister that I’ve ever had.” Pain, so much pain rested within Karol’s eyes. “Don’t you remember, we used to dance, laugh, spin around so fast that we’d get dizzy and fall over only to do it all over again?”
“We were children,” Karol murmured. “It’s so long ago now, I can’t remember the last time I laughed openly.”
He’d taken her spirit, crushed it, come close to destroying everything that had made Karol special. The light had gone from her but for one small glimmer that had left her with the ability to question Brian. Even that faded a little more each day.
It had to stop.
“The children aren’t the only ones who should be able to laugh.” Did she even laugh with her children anymore? What sort of life would they have if their father kept treating Karol this way?
“They stopped laughing a year ago around their father, they hide now when he comes home,” Karol answered the unspoken question. “I’ve tried to tell him just what he’s been doing to them. Melanie pleads to go to bed before her Daddy comes home, and Justin cowers in his room the minute he hears the car pull up.”
“Goddess, what has he done to them?”
“Shouted, screamed, told them to get out of the way, and that’s when he’s not just ignoring them completely.” Karol pulled her hand back from Hailey’s grasp. “He’s not the man I married anymore. Brian used to be good with them, but now, it’s like he just sees them as an extension of me.”
A part of Hailey wanted to give Karol a good hard shake. Brian had always been an idiot, would always be one but there seemed little point in hurting her friend any more than she had already been. She’d walked into the marriage of her own free will; a single hint that she should have known better would have been enough to send Karol into a pit of despair that even a trained magi healer might be unable to pull her back out. No matter what her personal opinions Hailey wouldn’t push Karol down that path.
“I have to get the children away from him, but I
know he’ll come after me. He’s not going to just let us go like that.” Karol’s gaze lowered back to the steaming mug. “He’s made it clear, he’d take them from me, fight me tooth and nail in court. For all that he wants nothing to do with them when he’s home. They’re a status symbol with his parents. Why couldn’t I have found a man that made me feel ‑‑ alive, instead of someone who wants to kill me a piece at a time?”
The temptation was there, growing by the moment, to tell Karol to hold fast because he’d be dealt with soon. Yet to do so would have opened up too many questions. She couldn’t take that risk.
Goddess, please. Give her the strength to last a little longer. That’s all I ask.
“Be strong, old friend, hold on to your children, to the love they have for you and it will work out.” The children…she couldn’t imagine what their lives were now like. Did they truly hide from their father? Run into their bedrooms, close the door and hope he wouldn’t put his head around the corner.
For that alone Brian needed to be punished.
Children were innocent, they were to be loved, cherished, protected, and never used as targets for an evil man’s temper. If there had ever been some good in the man Karol had married, it had long since died.
A glimmer of hope entered Karol’s red-rimmed eyes. “They’ve been my reason for breathing.”
“Keep them first and foremost in your heart, Karol. Hold them close, try and find small things to share with them, books, parks, walks, something that takes them away from the house and the memories of what their father does. It will do you some good, as well.”
“I’ll try, it’s hard sometimes, but I’ll try.” With a shaking hand, her old friend reached back across the table, grasping Hailey’s fingers, the cuff of her shirt catching, pulling up as her fingers tightened. “Without you I’d have given up hope a long time ago. These talks, the coffee, our quiet moments, whatever excuses we come up with, they’ve been light points in the darkest of times.”
Hailey wanted to offer some shred of wisdom, but all she could do was stare at the fingertip-sized bruises that decorated Karol’s arm just above the wrist…
* * * * *
“You saw bruises? Are you sure about that? I thought she’d said she hadn’t been hit.” Darrel’s voice carried down through the telephone. “Could they have just been smudges, dirt of some kind?”
“No they were bruises. I saw them on her wrist ‑‑ well just above it. I don’t think she’s been hit but Karol did say she’d been shaken by him. Honestly speaking, I’m not sure she was even aware of the marks being there.” Making excuses? Had she fallen into that trap? No, Karol would have hidden them if she had been truly aware of their existence.
“It’s not going to be long before he does lose his temper completely and strikes out at her.”
“I know. I couldn’t tell her that though, not yet. I’m not sure how she’d take hearing that. She’s barely holding on as it is.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“She’s not ready to hear it.” Even if Karol already knew it in her soul, hearing it from another would have crushed her. “Even the children are afraid of him now.”
“What has he done to them ‑‑ no, wait, I don’t want to hear it. That’s just more than I could handle and still be able to work with you on this. I’d lash out, lose control.” His voice trembled, an anger building behind his words that he struggled to keep from gaining new life. She could feel it, crackling through the phone until the hairs on the back of her arms rose.
“He’s not hurt them, not physically.”
“Yet.”
The single word felt forced, hissed between his teeth.
“Darrel, we won’t let it get to that.” She wanted to reach out to him, even through the phone, pull him close if only to grant him a safe place where he could focus and calm.
“I know.” A low sigh carried the words down the phone. “Sorry, for a moment I nearly lost it again. Look, the faster we come up with a way to deal with him the better. Leaving it too long might backfire in a way neither of us is ready to deal with. Can you make it here this evening?”
“Yes, you’ve got an idea?”
“It’s a long shot, but yes. It might not work but I’m doing some more research this afternoon. I just need to pick up a book, if I can persuade the owner to lend it to me.”
Long shot was better than no shot at all. “I’ll be there, about eight?”
“Yes, I’ll need you here before sunset.”
“Sunset?” There were not that many rituals that included the waning of the day. Not unless he planned to do something that would take the full course of the night to take effect. But that would mean…
“Yes. Look, trust me on this.”
“I do.” She could sense it, the depth of his belief, the hope with which he now reached out to her. Like a soft touch that traced down her arms only to pull her against his unseen body, sheltering her from the doubts that threatened to gain life at the back of her mind.
It shouldn’t have happened this way. Yes, bonds with empaths were possible, even documented, but not at this level, not this quickly. One meld, one momentary bond to help Karol and she now felt every breath he took, shared his hopes, desires. Just a stray thought about their night together had her whole body tingling with the memory of his touch.
“Tonight; it will all make sense tonight. I’ll have everything laid out for us and if you have any doubts then we’ll look for another way. I’ll explain when you’re here; that way you can go over the research if you want to before you make a decision.”
She wanted to believe him, to trust in him as she had done no other. Two sets of thoughts and emotions meshed as one until she no longer knew where his ended and hers now began. Something must have gone wrong during the meld. It was the only thing that made sense, but he didn’t feel like the type that would force a bond. She’d be able to sense it if he had, or had even thought to.
No, there was another force at work here.
One she wasn’t sure she wanted to admit to.
“I told you he could help you.” Gem’s voice broke through her thoughts in the long moments that passed after she set the phone back down. “He’s stronger than most I have met with his gifts, a wild card.”
Wild card. There weren’t many of them in the world, and no one knew for certain just what they could do outside of their empathic skills. There were rumors, legends ‑‑ but they were nothing more than that.
Stories.
“Dangerous,” she murmured. “His anger; I could feel it through the link. Even if that wasn’t in place then I’d have heard it in his voice. He’s truly furious with Brian. That makes him volatile, a time bomb waiting to go off.”
“He has more control than you think.”
“And what if he explodes, hurts someone? He’s untrained, and you tell me he’s a wild card so he can never be fully trained.”
“Yes, but any gift can be dangerous. Just as a gun can be in the wrong hands. It’s not the gift that is the true problem but how it is used and by whom.” The older woman smiled, warmth glittering within the depths of her eyes. “Darrel has the ability to be a source of healing or destruction. He’s fought to control his gifts, to use them only for healing. This step to help you and Karol is a daring one for him and could tip him in the wrong direction if he gains a taste for power.”
“Then why…”
“You can prevent it, Hailey.” Gem waved her into silence. “I brought you two together for a reason.” She tapped the side of Hailey’s head with two fingers. “Or did you forget one of my gifts is foresight.”
“Yes, but that only works with relations…” Her annoyance flared into a near rage, only to be blanketed by the soft comfort of his love that even now filtered through their link. “You played me?” Bad enough that she had been set up to end up on a date with him, but to be tricked into doing more?
Gem slipped one arm about Hailey’s waist, leading the younger woman back into t
he kitchen. “Yes and no. I simply put the choices in front of you that would enable you to walk the path you were meant to. If it hadn’t been destined nothing Darrel and you did together would have formed the bond that now exists between you.” Gem reached across the table for the teapot. “I know you’re angry right now, love, but it’s been for a good reason.”
“I don’t like being pushed around into things.” She half slumped into the chair opposite. “And I really don’t like this. You should have given me a choice, a chance to understand what was going on before you suggested I go and talk to him.”
“I know, but if I’d said ‘go see Darrel. He cannot only help you with Karol but he’s your soul mate,’ what would you have said?”
I don’t believe in fate. How often had she said that, only to have to try and explain how a woman whose life spoke of mystical energies and powers beyond understanding shrugged off the very idea of fate or destiny?
“Maybe you don’t, but it believes in you.”
It took her a moment before she even realized she’d never given life to those words…
Chapter Ten
Gem’s words replayed endlessly in the back of her mind as she stood by the gate looking up at Darrel’s door. Could Gem be right, that she was fated to be with him?
No, that was just her aunt’s way of justifying what she had done. It made sense, after all. Gem had only been trying to fix her up with every eligible man that had so much as looked her way for the past eight years. She’d almost had her feeling as though her entire life had been leading up to this moment, that she was bound by some unseen power, destined to share her life with Darrel and all because her aunt wanted to see her paired off.
Dammit, she just played right into it.
So why was she still standing here instead of heading for home? Common sense said get out of it, find another way to help Karol, walk away and never look back.
