Burning Darkness

by Jaime Rush

  Don’t make more of it than it is, because that’s what you do. He protects you, and you think you love him. Everything he’d done filled her with that need, with that scary feeling. What he made her feel was the scariest thing of all. Was it real or something contrived by that little girl inside her who yearned for someone to protect her?

  She dug out the tie-dyed yellow jeans and a green tank top, put them on, and pushed herself to leave the room. Her stomach growled at the thought of toast now. The kitchen’s walls were painted a taupe, with metallic red tiles going halfway up. The counters were dark stone, the light fixtures contemporary. Magnus had, to his word, left a loaf of whole-grain bread on the counter, a plate with a pat of butter and knife, and a tea set. She started the kettle and looked through the assortment of tea tins. Several exotic varieties tempted her, and she chose honey vanilla. She scooped the chunky blend into the tea diffuser.

  While she waited for the tea to brew, she tuned into a strange clanging sound in the near distance. Alert for anything odd, she walked down the hall and looked out into an interior courtyard filled with flora and fauna. Across the way, she saw a studio with walls of glass and two men wearing Scottish garb, fencing. Their swords clashed, the sound bouncing off all the glass. She watched them for a minute, amazed at their grace and strength, which reminded her of Eric, which propelled her back to the kitchen.

  Once she’d eaten her toast and brewed a second cup of tea, she returned to the bedroom. Eric was sitting up in bed, looking dazed. Her heart shot through the ceiling and she nearly dropped her teacup. Relief was quickly followed by guilt for not being there when he woke.

  She tamped down her soaring excitement (Okay, she wanted to jump up and down), set down her cup and walked to the bed. “How are you feeling?”

  He pulled his gaze from her and looked around the room. “Where am I?” His voice was hoarse. “This isn’t hell, right?” His gaze settled on her, softening. “You wouldn’t be in hell.”

  She perched on the bottom edge of the bed. Now she would have to tell him about the antidote. “You’re at Wallace’s compound.”

  He looked at her again, and she could see his muddled mind sorting through the pieces. “I didn’t die?”

  She shook her head.

  “You got me here?”

  “I called Magnus. He and Lachlan brought you here.”

  She saw the exact moment that he put it together. His face got pale and his icy blue eyes snapped to hers. “You gave me the antidote.”

  “I wasn’t going to let you die.”

  “You could have gotten killed. I could have fried you. Or Magnus. That’s why I told you to leave me alone.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t, and everything turned out all right.”

  He looked at his hands. They were shaking a little, but then again, he hadn’t eaten in more than a day.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, with what was probably a forced smile, reminding him of the time she’d followed him when he’d gone to find Sayre.

  “You disobeyed me, risked your life, and allowed some unstable substance to be put into my body. I don’t know whether I want to thank you or throttle you.”

  She cat-walked across the bed to him. “If I were you, I’d kiss me and thank me. Be a lot less messy.”

  He was torn, and that was a good thing. Instead of doing either, he dropped back and covered his face with his hands. He’d gone almost as still as he had been through the night. “What the hell are the brothers doing?”

  “Who?”

  “Magnus and Lachlan. They’re fighting with swords.”

  “Yeah, I saw them, though I was in too much of a hurry to get back to you to watch them.” She blinked. “How did you—you can still remote-view.”

  His hands fell away, a ghost of a smile on his face. “Yeah. I didn’t lose my abilities. Maybe I’d better test the pyrokinesis.”

  “No! Not here. Wouldn’t be considered good guest-age.”

  “Guest-age?”

  “You know, being a good guest.” She inched closer, looking down on him. “So you don’t hate me?”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “A little.” He took her arm and pulled her closer. His hair was messier than she’d ever seen it, but that could be her fault. “Why? Why did you risk your life even after I’d ordered you to leave me alone? After everything I’ve done to you?”

  Her throat tightened. The truth? The line from the movie A Few Good Men came to mind: You can’t handle the truth! She couldn’t handle the truth. So she improvised.

  “We’re working together. We’re a team, and we need each other if we’re going to kick this Westerfield’s ass. And . . .” She glanced to the right of him. “ . . . I couldn’t help Jerryl. It’s what haunted me the most, that I was right there and couldn’t help him. I wasn’t going to go through that with you.”

  He released her, and she swore he looked disappointed. “You have the soul of a soldier. You do what you have to do for your comrades.”

  “Isn’t that why you saved me?”

  He paused. “Yeah.” He sat up again, scrubbing his hands through his hair, and then made a sniffing sound. “Damn, I need a shower.”

  “You were sweating buckets.” She was almost afraid to ask. “Do you remember anything?”

  He shook his head. “Lights, like the Aurora Borealis, in the darkest blackness I have ever seen. Thinking I was in hell because I was so hot. Feeling fire in my veins, probably after the injection.” He looked at the bruise inside his elbow. His gaze lifted to her and his pupils dilated for an instant.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I was probably delusional.”

  Did he remember their interlude? She turned away. “You’d better call your people. They’ve been tripping with worry.” She got his phone and handed it to him. “They love you loads. You’re lucky.”

  His hand closed around over hers, though his gaze was somewhere else. “Yeah. I am.”

  He talked to them for a few minutes and then got out of bed. That’s when he noticed he was naked. “You stripped me?” He looked shocked, giving her a raised eyebrow. “You bad girl.”

  “You were drenched.” Way to sound defensive. Her face flushed with heat. Oh, I did more than that. She put her hands on her hips. “Besides, you don’t care if I see you naked anyway. Like now, for instance.”

  He walked toward the bathroom, but swayed and grabbed onto the edge of the dresser for balance.

  Fear spiked in her again as she rushed to his side. “Are you all right?”

  “A little dizzy. I’m starved.”

  “Eat first, then shower.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You are such a guy. I’m going in to the bathroom with you, then.”

  “If you insist.”

  A rush of relief and gratitude washed over her. He was the same Eric. She wanted to hug him but held back. “Go in. I’ll be right here if you need me.”

  He gave her a curious look, as though he were figuring something out. Then he shook his head and started the shower. She sat on the lid of the toilet, her legs pulled up to her chest, cheek resting against her knees. The shower curtain was an opaque blue, revealing indistinct outlines of his body. She had to watch him, because he wouldn’t call out if he felt dizzy. She’d have to try to catch his bonehead ass before he hit the tub.

  You are so falling for that bonehead.

  The truth she’d been trying to avoid now pulsed through her. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to push it back.

  You know the psychology, girlfriend. You did it with Jerryl, and so it’s only logical that you’d do it with Eric.

  Except I don’t feel the same way about Eric that I did about Jerryl. Jerryl was lust, drama. He fed my anger. Eric calms me in some ways, and makes me crazier than ever in others. But he doesn’t make me angry. He does make me feel safe.

  The shower stopped and he pushed the curtain aside. Dammit, she had to stop seeing him naked. A woman could onl
y take so much. She stood, threw a towel at him, and stalked out.

  “Something I said?” he asked.

  “No, something you are.” She closed the door.

  Sayre parked along the road, looking down the gravel drive. He’d finally gotten into Fonda’s dreams enough to get her to clue him in as to where they were. When he had Fonda take a walk around, he recognized the place. Amy had stayed there once, and he’d given the information to Darkwell. For some reason, he couldn’t get into Eric. Well, he could have plenty of fun with Fonda. Especially once he got rid of Eric.

  It took some dicking around, but he’d finally found the road. It was out in the rural area south of Annapolis. He didn’t know what this place was or who owned it, and the NO TRESPASSING signs made him wonder what the heck they were doing out here. He’d wait a bit. He had plenty of time.

  Chapter 19

  Eric could have eaten a horse, but he had to settle for a pound of bacon, ten eggs, and half a loaf of bread. Fonda wore an amused expression as she nibbled on a piece of bacon. He ought to be pissed at her, but he couldn’t quite muster it. Mostly because he had some hazy memories of her, of things she’d said to him, of her tender toughness. The erotic thing could have been his imagination, but the other stuff . . . those memories made him feel something, which made him think they were real. Then she’d said she only saved him out of honor and responsibility.

  Hell, if he knew.

  Magnus sat at the table, too, leaning his chair back. “So what are your plans now?”

  “We’ve still got to find a way to nail this guy.”

  “Amy said he wasn’t part of the original program,” Fonda said.

  Eric mopped up the last of his egg yolk with the last of his bread and popped it into his mouth. “So how does he fit in?” He didn’t wait for an answer, of course. He looked at Magnus. “We’ll be out of here by noon.”

  “If you need my help, I’m here. Sounds like one way or another this guy will be hunting us all down.“

  Eric shook his head. “I appreciate that, but he and whoever he’s working with might not know about you. No need to put you in danger.” He looked at Fonda. “Wallace never told Darkwell about his sons. When their mother got pregnant, the program was deteriorating, and so were the subjects.”

  “Didn’t seem like the right time to make the happy announcement,” Magnus said. “By the time Lachlan was born, the subjects were dying, and my father suspected they weren’t all because of mental illness. So he put my mother’s last name on the birth certificates and left his name out altogether.” He raised his thick eyebrow. “So on paper, we’re bastards.”

  Eric recognized the hunger to fight in Magnus’s eyes, remembered how they were sword fighting. “If we run into a situation where we need the extra manpower, we’ll give you a shout.” He didn’t want to be responsible for another man’s death. Besides, if Magnus died, he knew that Lachlan would have his head.

  Fonda leaned her elbows on the table. “We’ve got to find out who Westerfield is affiliated with. He showed me an FBI badge, but that could be a fake. Is he really government? Most importantly, who’s the guy on the other end of the phone? He might be the bigger threat, which means getting rid of Westerfield won’t solve our problem. Let me find him, figure out where he is. Eric, you can remote-view him and gather more information.” She looked at Magnus. “That’s what we were doing when Eric took a nosedive.”

  Eric pushed his plate away, his gaze on Magnus. “Are there any dangers in astral projecting? With remote-viewing, I’m not really there. But her soul goes to where she projects.”

  “Other than the psychosis, I don’t think so. Not that we ran into, anyway. But we never dealt with someone like us. Hitler, Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ—”

  “You saw Jesus?” Eric asked.

  “My father did. He was different after that, too. It was the most peaceful I’d ever seen him.”

  Fonda’s face glowed. “I want to learn to do that. That would be incredible.” The glow disappeared. “But first I’ve got to focus on the present. We’re going to head out in a bit. I’m sure Lachlan will be glad to see us go.”

  Magnus shrugged. “You disappointed him, Eric.”

  “By not dying?”

  “By not losing your abilities. Yours came back even faster than mine did. But really, he can’t get much more bitter than he already is.” He turned to Fonda. “Project from here. Let us know where this guy is, in case you and Eric never come back.”

  She gave him a forced smile. “That’s optimistic.”

  He stood and tapped the table. “Got to be realistic with this business. Let me know what you find out.”

  Eric loaded his dishes into the dishwasher and followed Fonda down the hall to the room he’d spent the night in. He didn’t realize that he put his hand on her lower back until he’d already done it. Fonda glanced back but didn’t shrug away from him.

  She climbed onto the bed and stretched out. Her lower body was encased in tie-dyed yellow jeans, and her green tank top tightened over the curves of her boobs. The pink stripe of hair caught the sunlight coming in, and her hair, parted on the side, brushed her cheek. She still wore those drippy gold earrings.

  “What?” she asked when she noticed he’d stopped cold and was staring at her.

  “You look . . .” He wasn’t sure what to say. His brain was still in second gear. Something was bugging him, and seeing her like that jarred it again. “This is not the kind of question a guy likes to ask, but did something happen while I was out? Did we make love?”

  Her body stiffened and her face flushed. So when she said “No,” very definitely, he actually felt disappointed.

  He sat on the bed. “Because I had this . . . well, I’m not sure it was a dream exactly—”

  “Nothing happened.”

  He crawled up next to her. “I have these memories of you in my arms. Of touching you here.” He put one hand on her stomach, his other hand around the back of her neck. “And here.” He slid his hand to her waist, and then around to her back. “And here.” He kissed her, taking her lips in his, just a taste.

  Her eyes closed but her eyebrows were furrowed. Why was she fighting him? There was at the least an overpowering sexual chemistry between them. That, she couldn’t deny, and yet she was. Her body moved into his touch, her mouth slackened, and he swept in with his tongue.

  He held onto the words he’d heard her say, raw emotion saturating them: Eric, please come back to me. I need you. He’d come back, and now she was putting up the wall again.

  She pushed back, a tangle of emotions on her face. “I can’t.”

  He sat back, expelling a breath. “Because of Jerryl? You still think you love him, don’t you?”

  She looked genuinely surprised by his assumption. “Jerryl?”

  “I saw the pictures in your bag.”

  “The pictures . . . oh, yeah, those. I threw them away at my father’s house.”

  “You threw them away?”

  She nodded, tracing infinity circles on the sheet. “You were right; I never loved him.”

  “You’re mad that I popped that bubble?”

  She stretched out on her side, her gaze on her finger as she continued to trace circles. “At first, yes. You made me see things about myself, things I didn’t want to see. Even worse, it was you putting that mirror in front of my face.” She exhaled a soft breath and looked at him. “But I’m glad you did.”

  He lay on his side, arm propped up by his hand, facing her. Hearing those words sent a surge of relief through him. It mattered, and given the way he felt, it mattered a lot to him that she’d come to her senses where Jerryl was concerned. He reached out and skimmed his hand along her side and the curve of her hip. He said something he didn’t think he would ever say. “Do you forgive me for putting you through that? For killing him?” That mattered, too, and he would do anything to hear her say the words.

  He didn’t have to pay any price. Her eyes were clear and filled wit
h compassion. “Yes, I’ve forgiven you.”

  He cupped her cheek. “Thank you.” The words came out in almost a whisper. She did things to him, broke down his hard shell, made him into someone he’d never been before. She still had her shell, though, and he knew in that moment he would do whatever it took to break through it. He grazed her mouth with his thumb, brushing slowly back and forth. “Do you feel safe with me?”

  She nodded.

  He shook his head. “Some part of you doesn’t. I see it now, and whenever I touch you. I won’t ever hurt you. Do you know that?”

  She nodded again, and he saw the shell in her eyes, the shell and the yearning.

  “I want you,” he said. “You know that, too, don’t you?”

  She hesitated, shifting her gaze away. Uncomfortable territory. Yeah, well, this was unfamiliar terrain to him, too. He’d always gone into new situations without fear, guns blazing, not taking the time to think things through. He was done doing that. She was too important to risk, to scare away. Walking a fine line, however, was as foreign as what he was feeling for her.

  She cleared her throat. “You know I have this thing, this weakness for someone protecting me. I based everything I thought I felt for Jerryl on that. Now I feel . . . something for you, and even though it’s different, I’m afraid it’s because of that. You’ve saved me—”

  “I thought we weren’t keeping score.”

  “We’re not. I’m not. You’ve done more than just save my life, like making me see the truth . . . you’ve done more than anyone else in my life has. You didn’t let me stay blind and comfortably numb. I don’t trust what I feel.”

  “What do you feel?”

  She searched his eyes, a flicker of panic in hers. “Eric, don’t make me—”