Damn the man. Didn’t she tell him to leave her alone?
How do you do that? Did you plant some kind of device on me yesterday so you can listen in to my thoughts? She projected the thought in her mind angrily. Having him in her head angered her even more.
You’ve been watching too many sci-fi movies, Tara. This is real. More to the point, you’re in danger and I can’t do anything about it unless you ask for me. His words reached into her mind like a gentle caress.
Why not? I thought you said you were here to protect me from danger. So if I’m in trouble why aren’t you here rescuing me? She replied and rolled her eyes upward. Like she’d actually believe his words. The man was full of it.
You sent me away, remember. I can’t come to you again until you ask me to.
Oh, she paused for thought.
Instinct warned her something was wrong. Her skin prickled. She decided to heed it.
“Listen, I don’t think we’re going the right way. I’m going to go back,” she said out loud to the man in front of her.
Before she could turn around, the man grabbed and lifted her off the ground with alacrity.
“Let me go,” she screamed as she clawed at him, kicking him. Fear flooded her body into panic mode. It didn’t seem to have much effect on him because his grip tightened and he dragged her further into the dark dungeon.
Oh no! Oh no! I’m not going to die in a dingy dungeon at the hands of a crazed killer.
Tara, all you have to do is ask for my help. M’na spoke again in her mind.
“Somebody help me!” she screamed our loud.
“No one can hear you down here.” The caped man laughed like a crazed hyena.
You have to acknowledge me by asking for me specifically. M’na spoke calmly. She couldn’t believe how calm he sounded when she was being abducted.
That would mean I believe you are some supernatural being who can read minds, instead of a figment of my imagination, she replied to him.
Exactly. If you want me to help you, you have to accept me.
She hated the confident tone of his voice, as if he already knew she would capitulate.
No way!
She kicked out as hard as she could. The caped man only emitted a cold screech of laughter in response. Icy fear spread from her spine to her limbs.
Tick tock, Tara. You don’t want to find out what Mr. Jack the Ripper has in store for you down there.
His words drew her back into the present situation. She definitely didn’t want to be chopped up or whatever this man wanted to do to her. Surely saving her own life was more important than losing her mind.
The man had taken her in to a dark cavernous room with stripped brick walls. As she struggled, he strapped her onto what looked like a raised wooden surface with leather straps. Realizing she was in real trouble she screamed.
“M’na, help me...please!”
Before she’d said the word please, he appeared in the cave in a flash of lightning. Electric energy seemed to radiate from him, his eyes the color of the mid-day sun.
The man turned to M’na. Except he was no longer a man but a thing with scaly skin like a crocodile’s and fangs instead of teeth; his eyes now pure black. For the first time in her life, Tara was seriously scared. She’d never seen anything like it before.
The thing leapt in the air. Another scream burst through her lips as M’na released long silver darts that seemed to shoot from his fingers into the thing, pinning it to the wall. It disintegrated into black ash and sulphur fumes.
As she gasped in horror at what just happened, M’na was beside her, releasing her from the bindings. Wrapping his arms under her body, he scooped her off the platform. Overwhelmed with relief, she grabbed and hugged him tighter than she’d ever hugged anyone else. She wasn’t much of a touchy-feely person. However, the way he held her soothed her nerves.
“Are you okay?” he asked her, his voice gentle and concerned.
“Yes,” she whispered against his shirt as tears pooled in her eyes.
He pulled back, taking her hand. “Come, let me get you out of here.”
She nodded and moved closer to him. As the energy arc increased around them, she asked the question racing through her mind. “What are you?”
Chapter Four
Tara’s body was still trembling from the rush of terror and adrenaline in her body when they re-emerged in her hotel room what seemed like seconds later. Still feeling wobbly, she held onto M’na even after the ground beneath her feet solidified and she could move away.
Something about being in his arms quelled her terror and reassured her. As his large hands stroked down her spine in calming circular motions, she felt protected, like nothing could ever harm her as long as she stayed connected with him.
This sudden need to seek shelter in a man’s arms surprised her. By nature she was strong, capable, and determined. Nothing ever fazed her usually. Still, the events of the last twenty-four hours were unusual. First, her encounter with M’na at the Blood Bar, and then the attack by some creature that could masquerade as a human had shaken her to the core, driving her to question herself and the world around her as she knew it.
Could everything she’d ever believed be a lie?
She let out a muffled sob. With a scoop of his arms under her legs, M’na carried her to the leather sofa and sat her next to him. One of his arms stayed across her shoulders while the other tilted her chin up so she could look into his eyes. They were back to being brown with the amber rim, just like the sun during an eclipse, capturing her attention, and holding her in their thrall.
Warmth suffused her body, her pulse rate picked up. The connection was back between them and with it the sensation of familiarity and safety. Of desire and longing. This man could offer her something no one else could.
He wasn’t a man, though—at least, not in the sense she understood the word. He wasn’t human. A fuzzy sensation settled over her mind. She shook her head to clear it.
“I’ll answer your question shortly. I just want to be sure you’re alright,” he said.
How did he know what she was thinking?
“Are you reading my mind again?” she asked, getting annoyed that he could get in there without permission. She didn’t want him reading her private thoughts.
“No. I can see your questions and doubts reflected in your eyes,” he replied, the intensity of his gaze stopping her heart for a brief moment. There was no mistaking the depth of his concern. “Moreover, you did ask me who I was back in the cave.”
“Oh. Sorry.” She’d already forgotten her question, her mind and body shaken up by the unfolding events of the day.
“I’m alright now, just a bit alarmed by what I just saw. The thought of that thing...” She shivered despite the warmth of the room as she remembered the creature.
He held her again, cocooning her in his warmth. “I’m here. I won’t let anyone or anything hurt you.”
“So it wasn’t a figment of my imagination?”
Pulling back from his arms, she glanced at him wildly as fear gripped her again. A faint thread of hope dangled before her. She reached out and clung to it. Perhaps she wasn’t losing her mind just like her Aunt Aggie who’d ended up being sectioned because she believed she saw supernatural beings. Madness didn’t run in her family, surely.
It was bad enough she’d lost her only surviving relative the same way, but to find out that she was as afflicted as her aunt would be worse. Especially since she’d lived with the shame and humiliation among her peers and had been shunted from one foster home to another afterward. To survive, she’d built a wall around her heart and focused on going to college, building a career, and being successful. Since she’d become a high-flying lawyer no one laughed at her any longer.
M’na shook his head. “If I hadn’t intervened you would not be sitting here right now.”
“So tell me what’s going on,” she said, injecting her determination into her voice. She needed to know what was going o
n so she could develop a plan of action to solve it. There was no way she was going to let her life as she knew it crumble around her.
***
M’na stood, needing some distance from Tara to think clearly. The effect of sitting next to her and comforting her was driving him crazy. His need for her was growing every minute. Soon he would be unable to keep his hands off her. The attraction between the two of them had always been intense. A millennium of being apart had not diminished their bond. If anything it seemed to be growing stronger than it had been.
Nothing could break their connection. Yet it had become a curse as well as a blessing. To be this close to her and know her, and for her not to know him, was killing him slowly. The only way to solve the problem was to tell her. So he stopped pacing the room, sat back on the sofa, and told her about who he was and why he was there. About his work as a gatekeeper—her guardian.
“So you’ve been assigned to watch over me, like a bodyguard?” Her face creased in a frown.
“Close, although as I said before our relationship is much more.”
Her eyes widened and her nose flared, she lowered her eyes as if embarrassed. “Why am I assigned a bodyguard...guardian? Does every other human on earth have one?”
“There are teams of guardians who ensure humans are not preyed upon by supers.” He hesitated before carrying on. There was no point hiding the truth from her. She needed to know who she was. “Your case is different, though. You are special, Tara.”
“How?” Her body visibly tensed up.
“You have the body of a human, but your soul is that of a super.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re not human. You are a gatekeeper like me. You have supernatural abilities—”
Suddenly she burst out laughing. She sounded hysterical and for a moment he wondered whether he’d done the right thing by telling her straight after her ordeal in the dungeon.
“Now I know you’re mad. Absolutely barking. I’m a girl from a leafy little town in Surrey. My life is nothing out of the ordinary.”
“You’re in a kind of celestial banishment. Your original identity was stripped and you were given a new one. Being the girl from Surrey is your cover. What they want you to think? It’s not who you really are.”
“What who wants me to think?”
“The celestial council. Listen, it doesn’t matter now. The point is that your cover has been blown. You are no longer safe. The minute you walked into the Blood Bar last night, you set off a chain of events which means you can no longer be just the girl from Surrey. Too much is at stake now.”
It seemed it was now Tara’s turn to pace the room. M’na watched her as she got off the sofa and tracked his original steps up and down the hardwearing carpet. He admired the calm way she’d taken his news so far, but he glanced impatiently at the clock on the bedside cabinet. Time was against them. She really had to accept her nature soon. It would make it easier to deal with what was in store for both of them.
“So if I’m like you, why don’t I have any powers like you do? Why couldn’t I stop Jack the Ripper earlier?”
“You were stripped of your powers when you reincarnated into this body. There are two ways of getting them back.”
“And they are?” She stopped and looked at him expectantly. Something in the depths of her brown eyes gleamed as if she wanted her powers back.
“The council can reinstate your powers. Considering they stripped you of them in the first place, you’ll have a tough time convincing them to give your powers back to you.”
“Hang on a minute. Why did they do that?” she asked puzzled, her forehead creased.
M’na grimaced, guilt gnawing his gut. He’d wanted to put off telling her this bit for as long as possible, but she deserved to know. “You went rogue. It was your punishment. Banished to reincarnate every millennium as a human without any powers.”
“I went rogue? You mean I turned evil?” She looked appalled, disgusted with herself.
He nodded. “Your actions put the earth realm in danger. Put human lives at risk. There was no choice other than to neutralize your powers.”
“Gosh.” She sat back on the sofa with a thump and put her head on her hands. “I was that bad? Why?”
“You were young and seduced by power—by Okoni. You didn’t like the restrictions placed on you when the realms were split.” He put his hand on her shoulders to reassure her. In truth it hadn’t been entirely her fault.
She looked up at his eyes, searching him. It seemed what she saw in there comforted her because she nodded and smiled warily. “It’s a fitting punishment and ironic that I was banished to live as a human on earth, considering I’d put earth in danger.”
He smiled in return. She’d taken his news better than anticipated. The weight on his heart lightened with relief. He squeezed her shoulder, enjoying the way her heat and aura seeped into him when they were connected.
“You said yesterday that we were eternally bonded. How did that happen if I was busy going rogue?”
“We were paired to work together and it was soon obvious that our connection was deeper than just defending the realms. We fell in love and the obvious step was to get bonded.”
He tilted her face so she could look into his eyes. She stared at him as if seeing him for the first time, as if truly understanding. His gut tightened as his heart pounded.
“So what have you been doing all this while?” She lifted her hand and touched his face lightly, tentatively.
Warmth surrounded his heart, desire stirring in his gut. He pushed his face into her palm, relishing her caress. It was the first physical acknowledgement from Tara. He hoped for more. It went beyond the physical and touched his soul. Great. Yet, not enough.
“When your soul was in limbo, I waited.” A shadow crossed his eyes as the anguish of the long wait for her soul to reincarnate returned. He had served out the sentence with her. It was torture to be eternally bonded and be apart. While she couldn’t sense him, he sensed her and her pain. And lived it every day. “When you were born into the human body all I could do was watch you from a distance. I wasn’t allowed to contact you, just watch over you, and keep you safe.”
She must have seen the torment in his eyes because she moved closer to him and hugged him tightly, squeezing his body affectionately, her head tucked in his shoulders. He was taken aback. However, he held onto her, grateful for the contact quelling his disquiet.
When she pulled back there were tears in her eyes again. “I don’t know everything that happened yet. In the depth of my being, I know you suffered on my account. I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive. It was partly my fault that you turned rogue. I could’ve done more to stop you. I didn’t. I was young and arrogant and more interested in pleasing the council and building my status in the hierarchy. I deserved to suffer.”
“Don’t say that,” she said her brown eyes blazing with intensity. Then she blew his mind by leaning forward, his face between her palms and kissed him.
Chapter Five
M’na’s shock quickly wore off as he kissed Tara back like a man who’d just been given his first meal in ages. Yes, he’d been starving, not just for a few days but for more than a millennium. From the moment she was banished, he’d been hungry for her warmth, her smile, her kiss, and her love.
Angling his face, he sealed their lips tighter, and swept his tongue across her mouth, tasting her robust sweetness. She let out a soft moan which he swallowed as she clung on to his neck. He lifted her up and placed her straddling his lap, yearning for closer contact with her. Their union had always been passionate. After being apart for so long he knew the next time would be volatile.
The energy around them crackled with heat. Withdrawing to catch his breath, he gazed down at her face, wanting to read her. Her eyes were closed. When she opened them they were a caramel color like her skin tone. His skin prickled with the spike of her energy. Her need blossomed,
rising to match his.
His ache for her pulsated within his rigid body and lonely soul, still, he needed to be sure she knew what she was getting into. Once they made love, there would be no going back.
“This is right, I can feel it here,” she said, touching the spot above her heart. “I want you regardless of what it means.”
Her words surprised him again. “Can you read my mind?” He raised his eyebrow quizzically.
“Not yet, but I can see your thoughts reflected in your eyes.” She smiled as she used his words on him. Nice touch. This was the woman he knew well. His face broke into a smile. It looked like they’d be alright, perhaps.
“You’ve waited such a long time for me. I don’t want to make you wait any longer.”
“I can wait—”
“I can’t.” She moved her hands down his back until she reached the hem of his T-shirt.
He held his breath in anticipation. Her hand slipped beneath, warm soft palm against hard chest. His breath whooshed out at the contact, his desire set ablaze again. He gritted his teeth to stop himself from mauling her. He could go at her pace.
She pulled his T-shirt off and he let her, entranced by the feel of her hands on his skin. Her gaze surveyed his body, warming it as she leaned back.
“If I had this body all to myself, I was one lucky girl.”
Her tongue swept across her lips. The flash of the pink tip alone hit him in the gut with lust. Her mouth widened, the corners curved in the sexiest smile he’d ever seen.
“I was the lucky one.”
His breathing came in rapid succession as she traced her fingers down his chest, her touch electrifying on his skin. Unable to keep from touching her any longer, he tugged her clothes off.
Though the wait was excruciating, he slowly explored her body, reveling in feeling, tasting, and smelling all of her. It always amazed him the passionate way she responded to him and him to her. There had never been anyone apart from her. There would never be anyone else. Without her he’d been lost, floating through the ages in limbo, barely existing. A part of him had died when she’d been sentenced and awakened when she reincarnated in this body.
The Enforcers (The Blood Bar Chronicles) Page 8
