“You’ve had your night. Now, get out of here.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Melanie held her ground in the broad kitchen, though she did so by sheer will alone. The sunlight at Teo’s back was strong enough to throw his form into relief and he stood before her a powerfully built dark silhouette. Except for his silvery eyes. His voice might have been rough, even angered, but she thought she read something else in his eyes. Anger, certainly, but more. Something almost pleading.
Now, get out of here, he’d commanded. But his eyes told a different story, nearly begged her to leave. Why would he need for her to go? And why did the harsh voice and the pleading gaze make her feel so very sad?
She dragged her gaze from his and again watched her son at his obsessive play. Like so many other puzzling things about Teo Sandoval, the protective fence he’d snapped into place was another anomaly. A man who shunned others had a cradle in one room and protective fences around his decking. A man who claimed to want to help no one had a stack of blankets and quilts in his closets. And a man who now commanded them to leave had only moments before promised her son the fox would be back on the morrow.
Chris’s concentration on the leaves, the pinecone, even the twig, were such that he’d taken on the slack expression of an autistic child. He was no such thing, of course, though she knew perfectly well that her love for him wouldn’t have altered one iota if that had been the case. But Chris wasn’t remotely autistic. Preliminary testing by the PRI had revealed his intelligence quotient at far beyond the normal range, while his emotional development fell somewhat short of acceptable norms.
Nothing shy of a total miracle would ever make her son “normal,” but he should be free to discover a way to relate to the world, to find a guarded happiness in his own unusual gifts. And no matter what promises the PRI made, they shouldn’t be allowed to get their hands on him. For everything in her warned that they would hurt him irreparably.
As they had done Teo Sandoval?
She thought then of the trust that had shone from Chris’s honey eyes when he’d met Teo Sandoval’s gaze. Thought of the way his little hand had rested on Teo’s broad shoulder. Thought of the two heads, one so dark, the other so fair, leaning close together in contemplation of Gina, a wild fox.
There was no denying the magic in Teo’s touch. Her own fear or anger couldn’t be allowed to matter, nor could a psychiatrist’s warning in a file put together long ago. Teo might have done extreme damage to the PRI more than a decade in the past, but she’d also witnessed him saving a mechanic, healing the man’s broken body with the raw power in his hands. And she knew that he could help Chris.
She couldn’t leave. Not now. Not after seeing them together, seeing how strongly Teo Sandoval affected her son, how easily he reached into her son’s psyche and soothed him, encouraged him. Not after seeing how easily he accepted the kinetic energy flowing in her son, how readily her son trusted him.
No matter how he might have angered her by stripping her clothes while she slept, no matter how harshly he had spoken to her, was glaring at her even now, she couldn’t leave. And however much he might frighten her or make her insides quiver like so much jelly, both for having kissed her and for her having returned that phantom kiss, her surety that he could help her son returned in full force. As did her resolve.
She had to ask him, beg him on bended knees if necessary, to let her stay. She had to get him to work with Chris, to teach him, to save him from the hands and minds of the scientists from the PRI.
“Let us stay,” she said urgently, unconsciously taking a step toward the man she feared and needed so. “Chris needs your help. You can see that. You must have been like him once. You can’t let them do to him what they tried to do to you. You can’t!”
“You have no idea what I can or can’t do,” Teo said harshly.
“I do,” she countered swiftly. “I saw you with him. You were kind. Tender. He needs you. I know you can help him.”
Before he could voice the denial she saw on his face, she stepped another pace closer, her words tumbling out to forestall his. “I’ll do anything. Pay anything!”
He stared at her obliquely for several long, long moments. As she had done the night before, she felt the same shiver of static electricity raising the hair on her arms, teasing at the nape of her neck. Something on the stone shelves behind her rattled. A small indication of the turmoil inside Teo? She willed herself not to turn, not to look. And she forced herself not to step back from the sudden blaze of dark, unreadable emotion in Teo’s gaze.
“The price is too high for anyone to pay,” he said finally, all but spitting the words at her.
Wild hope swept through her, a flash fire of possibility. “Anything,” she said. “I have money. Not much. I have a house. I mean, I’m not rich, but—”
“I told you yesterday, I don’t want your money!” He ground the words out through gritted teeth, a clenched jaw. His eyebrows winged sharply upward, giving him an evil cast.
“Anything you want…” Her words trailed off. She literally clasped her hands together before him. Pleading. Or was she simply trying to subdue her nearly violent trembling?
He stared at her so long, she held her breath, hoping against hope. Finally, as though the word was dragged from him, he said, “You.”
“What?” she asked blankly, his single word having razor-strafed the synapse in her brain.
“You said anything I want. Have it your way. You. I want you.”
“I don’t understand…. ” Melanie said feebly, all too afraid that she did.
“You. You are the price.”
Melanie felt the edges of the universe slipping away, a misty haze obscuring her view of the man so close to her she could smell his clean, mountain scent, could feel the heat emanating from his body, the electricity slipping from him, drawing her, repelling.
As if he could sense her total disorientation, her shock, he grabbed hold of her shoulders and kept her from giving in to the sudden faintness threatening to take her down. He raised a hand to her face, cupped her chin in his broad palm. His fingers pressed into her cheeks, hurting her not with his touch but with the harsh control she felt through his shaking fingers.
His blue-gray eyes burned into hers and she had the odd notion they were scoring her very soul. “You are the price, señora.”
With his hands upon her, holding her in place, his eyes boring into hers, there was no mistaking his message. She knew, in some wholly instinctual response, exactly what he meant, and yet her rational side refused to accept that anyone in this day and age could possibly be suggesting such an outrageous bargain. He was right; the price was too high.
His hand remained on her face for a moment, then his lips twisted bitterly and he pushed her away from him. Not roughly, not gently. Just dismissively. “I thought so,” he growled.
Melanie could still feel every nuance and imprint of his fingers. Her entire face felt on fire, her whole body burned from that brief contact.
She dragged in a shaky breath of relief when he turned his back on her. Ripples of fear snaked down her back as she saw, in peripheral vision, several of the food items on the shelves begin to shift and slide into each other. She felt a tingling sensation along her shoulders.
“Th-that’s unfair. S-society doesn’t w-work that way,” she stammered, attempting to temporize his bargain with some semblance of normality.
Teo whirled around and slammed his hand, palm flat, on the rough-hewn, butcher-block island in the center of his kitchen. Melanie jumped. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see the Spanish tile fling off the top and slice at her. The anger in Teo’s face was abject. Absolute.
“Damn society,” he snarled at her. “Damn the rules of the rest of the world. Like so many, you come here, begging my help. Unlike the others, I’m not willing to accept a chunk of meat, a blanket or two. You came to me. You asked me to name my price. I named it. Accept it or don’t, but don’t cavil!”
Melanie shran
k back against the stone wall as he advanced toward her, fury all but dancing from his eyes.
His voice carried a note of ominous menace, dark fury. “This is my mountain. My rules. You came to me against my wishes. You came willingly. Now accept the terms or get out! It’s all the same to me.”
Teo felt almost sick with the rage that boiled through him, but more so from the look of wretched terror on Melanie’s face. Her fine features were drawn in fear, her eyes almost flat with shock. For half a moment he wanted to take back the words he’d flung at her.
And, worst of all, he’d lied to her. It wasn’t the same to him at all. He’d never wanted anything—anyone—like he wanted this honey-haired woman whose mind was blocked to him, whose thoughts were occluded. He’d never craved anyone like this trembling woman whose tentative touch, accepting mouth, made him crazy and utterly weak with longing.
If only he could reach into her mind and feel a hint of want from her. He’d felt it when she’d pressed against him in the dark corridor, her body arching against his. But he could read no more of her thoughts than he could the sky or the mountains themselves. Why?
Why should it matter? She wanted something from him; he wanted her. It was that simple. She could take his offer or not. Yes or no.
She was right; he was being unfair. But there had never been a moment of fairness in his life. Born with the curse of demons and the gift of gods in his hands, he’d been raised by a father who so greatly feared his own flesh and blood that he had buried himself in bottle after bottle until finally, in drunken victory, he’d sold his own son to the PRI for a future of cash and a promise of no more flying objects. And then there was his mother, a curandera, a local witch, a dispenser of herbs. She had been a mountain wise-woman with a bagful of stories about possession, the powers of the devil and a sick fear of the child she’d born on a wild night years and years ago. Both were dead now, without Teo’s ever having had an opportunity to correct old wrongs. Unfair.
And Pablo…what had been fair about what his beloved Pablo had done? Nothing. Nothing at all.
And the PRI, literally chaining him, injecting him with drugs, waking him at all hours, confining him and others, driving them beyond pain, beyond endurance. What had been fair about what they had done to him? Or what he’d been forced to do in retaliation?
And what was fair about a society that shunned a child such as he had been, that pointed long, accusing fingers at him even as a few coveted his gifts? Nothing.
But most of all, what was fair about having had to accept that for him there would be no normal life, that dreams and wishes were for everyone else, but not for him? And after finally accepting that terrible fate, was it fair for this wide-eyed woman to bring her infant son to him and taunt him with possibility, with desire, with her ability to touch him and not jerk back in dismay? What was fair about her teasing him with all the impossibilities in his miserable life?
“What’s fair about anything?” He rasped in a velvet soft tone that clarified his anger all the more. “You’re the one who came to me. You’re the one disturbing my home, driving me crazy. You’re the one with the need so great you can’t even move away from me even though the fear is making you almost sick!”
He saw the truth of his words, the bitterness of them, work through her, parting her lips, moistening her eyes. But instead of turning away from him, or even slapping him, she shocked him by nodding.
The world seemed to hold perfectly still for a heartbeat. He could hear the very blood rushing in his veins and sought to quell the sudden flare of triumph that burst in him. But a nod wasn’t enough. If he couldn’t slip into her mind, glean her thoughts, her reactions, he wanted to hear the words spill from her lips. He had to read her understanding, her acceptance, in her eyes.
“What are you assenting to? My truth or my bargain?” he demanded to know. He reached for her arms, gripped her fiercely, and shook her slightly. He held her at arm’s length, fighting an almost overwhelming compulsion to drag her against his chest, crush her to him, kiss away the fear he could see in her eyes, the indecision etched so clearly on her nearly colorless face.
“Define your terms,” she said, freezing him.
He felt the flare of triumph transform to a swift exultation that flooded through him, hot and wild. His fingers tightened on her arms.
“Define…your…terms,” she repeated. Her full lips trembled, and he longed to capture them beneath his, to spell out his terms in a means too clear to misunderstand.
“I’m waiting,” she said, her voice cool if slightly breathy.
He felt a keen sense of respect for her then. And a disgust of himself, followed almost immediately by a bitterness directed at her. No one should even consider agreeing to such a bargain. No one. And he knew a moment’s stinging regret; he was man enough to desire her to want him for himself, not because he was forcing her to bend to his will.
But he was also a man who had been forced to be alone too long and she was a beautiful woman, enured to magic, and needing his help.
He drew a deep breath and said slowly, clearly, coldly, “I will help you with your son. I will even protect him from the PRI. All this. In exchange for your…company.”
He felt a shudder work through her, suspected her knees were buckling and that she would have fallen had he not held her erect with his fierce grip.
“D-define…company.”
“Day,” he said, and then concluded, “and night.” He felt as though the words were dragged from him and were used as a whip to flay her. But he repeated them nonetheless. “You will be mine, day and night.”
Melanie tried remaining perfectly still. His hands upon her arms were hurting her, but not nearly as much as his bargain was. How could she even be considering such a notion, such a mockery of everything she held dear? What he suggested was sickening, twisted. What did it say about her for even asking him to define the terms of his proposal? She couldn’t possibly agree. It was insane. It was demonic.
She stared into his eyes, trying to understand what had prompted him to even suggest it. All she could read was a glittering anger, and something else, that undefinable something she’d glimpsed earlier. Not pleading, necessarily, but something inexpressibly wary and disdainful of a longing too intense to even be named aloud.
She wanted to shake her head in negation, wanted to slap him for even suggesting such a demeaning bargain. And yet, judging by the tortured expression on his face, the fierceness of his grip upon her, she knew there was nothing casual about his proposal, nothing slightly offhanded. She remembered his kiss, the feel of his hands on her breasts, the taste of him on her lips.
There was no second-guessing a man like Teo Sandoval, for there were no other men like him. He was unique, an outcast, a man whose very powers kept him separated from the society she’d bleated at him about.
At all costs, he should be left alone.
She’d asked him to save her son from people who were after him, who had hurt Teo once, and then had been shocked when he’d responded unfairly. He was right; nothing was fair. It wasn’t fair that a baby should be feared because he had unusual gifts; it wasn’t fair for a group of scientists to act like common thugs; and it wasn’t fair of her to expect Teo Sandoval to help her with nothing in return.
But he was asking too much. He was dead right; the price was way, way too high.
She drew a deep breath, trying to understand the conflicting feelings churning inside her. The words that slipped from her mouth surprised her as much as they seemed to anger him. Why would her question make him mad? Surely the question was a natural one? Why would her question make his eyes narrow and his jaw tighten as if she had disappointed him somehow?
“How long?” she asked softly, then added in swift counter to the anger on his face, “How long would you have me stay?”
“Six months,” he snapped.
Six months? Half a year? She felt that dizzying sensation again, as if the world were shifting on its axis, sucking h
er into a maelstrom of gravity.
“Feed Gina now?” a voice trebled from the doorway.
Dazedly, Melanie saw her son exaggeratedly step over the strip of threshold. He tugged on one of Teo’s pant legs. God, he was so tiny, so defenseless.
“We feed Gina now?”
“Tomorrow,” Teo said softly. Gently. Tenderly?
“Want toys,” Chris said loudly.
If Melanie hadn’t had such a fierce block raised in her mind, she knew she would have received a mental picture of Chris’s ball, his action figure, a few other assorted items.
She didn’t need the mental picture. Suddenly, materializing out of thin air was a little red ball, the action figure, a comb, even her tube of lipstick.
She couldn’t help her startled, questioning look at Teo. He said nothing as Chris laughed delightedly and clapped his hands. The objects floated for a moment, then drifted toward the still open kitchen door and through it into the cavernous living room with its exquisitely carved furnishings. Chris padded after the objects, hands reaching for them, eyes alight with wonder, giggling at the novelty of toys moving under someone else’s direction.
Melanie only realized Teo still had hold of her when she tried turning to follow her son.
“He’ll be all right. He has them now,” he said. His hands gentled on her arms, slid up her shoulders and cupped her face between the broad palms, the long fingers slipping beneath her hair, drawing her closer.
She couldn’t seem to breathe. Certainly couldn’t have begun to think. Her heart pounded so furiously, she felt dizzy.
“Are you agreeing to the terms?” he asked.
Even as she felt her head nodding, she wondered how she could be agreeing to anything so outrageous. She knew what he wanted of her, what he expected, and as if mocking her, her mind conjured up the softness of his bed, the fullness of his lips, the cold, hard glitter of his gaze. What had she done by coming to him for help?
Sharing the Darkness Page 9
