Immortal Duty

by J. K. Coi

  She’d probably hoped he would give her something in return, share something of himself. While he didn’t like the idea of hurting her, the only thing Rhys could ever give Amy was his protection, which she didn’t seem to want, and the only thing he could share was his body, which at least she did seem to want.

  There was no reason why she should be upset right now. She was never upset in these situations. Hell, she was never in these situations.

  Amy was always the one who didn’t stick around, didn’t get involved, at least not emotionally. Neil had been a prime example of that.

  And she hadn’t deluded herself about Rhys, or the type of man he was.

  She had no right to expect more from him than he’d already given. She knew he wasn’t the type to do the long-term commitment thing, and if she started making demands he would bolt faster than she could say, “Holy intimacy issues, Batman.”

  The real question was, would she accept or cut her losses now?

  She feared it was already too late to get out with her self-respect intact.

  No, when it came to Rhys, she would break all her own rules and take whatever she could get for as long as she could get it.

  God help her.

  Amy cleaned up the kitchen while Rhys took a shower. When he was done he walked out of the bedroom, dressed again in his jeans and shrugging on his T-shirt. “What do you have planned for today?” He feigned interest, but she saw the truth in his eyes—he was back in cloak-and-dagger mode, probably wanting to keep tabs on her so she wouldn’t get into any trouble.

  “Don’t start,” she warned.

  “I won’t be following you around, I promise,” he said. “But it would ease my mind if I knew where you were going to be.”

  “And I should ‘ease your mind’ because…?” She tried not to let her exasperation show but rubbed her temple to ease the pressure of an oncoming headache.

  “Because I gave you multiple orgasms and you want to thank me?”

  She snorted, but a smile pulled at her lips. She didn’t want to encourage him but she knew he wasn’t going to leave until he got what he wanted. “Even though I know I’m going to regret this, I’ll tell you—but only because my life is perfectly normal and there’s nothing about it that could be considered dangerous.” She rolled her eyes. “I promised my brother I’d go shopping with him this afternoon before I start my shift at the hospital.”

  Amy walked with Rhys to the door. “Um, I’ll be home from work by midnight and I usually stay up for a while afterward because I’m too wired to get to sleep right away after a late shift. Do you want to—” She stopped and cringed, wishing she could take back the torrent of words as soon as they flew out of her stupid, impulsive, unthinking mouth. She hadn’t meant to ask him to come back, to let him know how much she wanted to see him again.

  Damn it! She was making a royal fool of herself.

  Rhys’ hand paused on the door handle. “I have some things to do. I’ll probably be busy pretty late into the night. I didn’t get a lot of work done yesterday, so…”

  Amy backtracked fast. The last thing she wanted was for him to regret the evening they had spent together because he thought she had those kindsof expectations. “You know, that’s fine. In fact, I kind of skipped out on some friends yesterday, and I should probably meet up with them tonight to apologize.” She looked away.

  Rhys surprised her by grabbing her and pulling her close. She couldn’t think properly when all that muscle and heat surrounded her, invading her senses. Could only feel—which is what had gotten her into trouble with him in the first place. She needed to be able to think if she was going to hold on to her good sense. But then he wrapped his strong arms around her waist and his mouth descended for a deep, tongue-tangling kiss.

  Whoa.

  How did he do that—make her toes curl and her insides melt with just a kiss?

  Chapter Ten

  A while later Rhys stood looking down at the top of her head because she’d tucked her face into the crook of his shoulder and refused to look at him.

  He didn’t want to think about how good that kiss had been. How right it had felt.

  “Amy.” His voice sounded harsh and he winced, but he needed to be as straight with her as he could be. “Amy, I can’t promise that I’ll be around. My life just doesn’t work that way.”

  “I understand.” She pushed back and crossed her arms over her midsection. “We had a nice time last night, but it was nothing. I know that.”

  “It wasn’t like that, Amy. It was just… It wasn’t nothing.”

  Amy didn’t answer. She looked away, and he felt like an insensitive jerk.

  He sighed. “From the moment we met, you started working your way in. I haven’t been able to shake you out of my system—although God knows I’ve tried,” he said.

  He ran his hand through his hair. “My judgment is impaired when it comes to you and I’ll keep coming back for as long as you’ll let me through the door. But don’t make any mistake, at some point you’re going to want something more than a guy who’ll stand you up nine times out of ten, won’t be able to meet your family, or take you out in public.”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s only been one night. Whatever this is, let’s just enjoy it for a while before we start regretting it and second guessing ourselves.”

  He wanted to repeat his warning. She didn’t understand, but there was nothing he could do to make her, and a selfish part of him didn’t want to try anymore. He just wanted to do what she said and enjoy the moment. “It might be a lot later than midnight, but can I come by tonight?”

  Amy was going to say yes. The rational part of her was screaming “No”—she didn’t want the heartache he was bound to cause her. This wasn’t Neil. There would be no keeping her distance with him. She was already in too deep. And with relationships, no matter how casual, came the potential for pain and she tried to avoid that as much as possible.

  She was drawn to him, to that look—the one he was giving her right now—that promised her staggering quantities of orgasms.

  But that wasn’t the only reason she was going to say yes. There was also something that appealed to her heretofore unacknowledged inner longing to be needed.

  Rhys didn’t seem the type to need anyone. Why was it, then, that Amy thought she occasionally saw something in his shadowed eyes—a sadness and a loneliness? It made her ache for his scarred soul.

  He could come back around again, and she would keep letting him in…but she was going to have to guard her heart even more carefully, so that when he did leave, just maybe he wouldn’t take her soul with him.

  * * * * *

  Shopping with Gideon was about as much torture as any woman could take. It was much harder than she had thought finding a sofa for her brother, although she should have known better when she’d agreed to this. Gideon didn’t even care what color, pattern or type of fabric she picked out for him, but he was still being as stubborn as a smelly, hairy old goat, and it was driving her crazy. He insisted that his new sofa must be exactly the same as the one he already owned. Because it was comfortable, he said, and his tall, lanky body fit across it perfectly when he fell asleep in front of the TV.

  She had to shake her head at that. It was a wonder they were even related, much less twins.

  What was it with men, ratty old loungers and the hypnotic power of a monster-sized television set?

  The problem was his old sofa was a thirty-year-old hand-me-down that looked like it came right off the old Partridge Family movie set. He’d salvaged it from friends who had themselves wisely decided to throw it out five years ago.

  How do you explain to the world’s most style-stunted man that it’s against all the laws of nature to torture the human eyes like that?

  She smothered another groan as Gideon leaned back into the tenth sofa in the fourth store of the day.

  Apparently the comfort test failed again—this one was too firm. The others had either been too s
oft, too short or too girlie—Amy had refused to even comment on that one.

  Her patience had worn thinner and thinner until she felt like a banshee about to let loose a wail so loud and long that her head and everyone’s around her would surely explode with the force of it.

  And if that were to actually occur, so much the better for the rest of her day.

  “Gideon.” Amy tried not to let him see how close she was to a complete and utter meltdown. Experience had told her that to do so would only attract worse behavior from him, like a bloodhound scenting the frightened rabbit. If he sensed she was close to the edge, Gideon would just try to find more ways to get under her skin.

  “I think we had better stop for today. You haven’t seen anything you like and I’ve got to get back home to get ready for work,” she said.

  “Are you sure? I was thinking we’d hit a few more stores. I think there are about two up the street that we haven’t been to yet.” He sounded just a little too eager.

  “I’m sure,” Amy replied firmly. Her voice cracked a little bit. “I’m done for the day.”

  She was showing the strain. She could feel Gideon’s bloodhound nose sniffing the air. He was picking up the scent.

  “All right then,” Gideon said innocently enough. “I was starting to think that maybe I should just keep the one I’ve got anyway.”

  “What?” she shouted, oblivious to the startled looks being sent their way by the sales clerks. There was no way.

  That was it! He was so going to get it.

  She rounded on him. “I haven’t spent all of my morning and half of my afternoon with you trying out every furniture store in town just so you can sigh and tell me that you think you’ll keep that flea infested, disco era reject of a sofa. We are coming back here on the weekend, at which time you will pick out one of the sofas we looked at today and have it delivered to your apartment, where you will sit on it, enjoy it and not spill beer and cheese doodles on it for at least six months!”

  Amy took a breath, turned away, then spun back toward her grinning brother. “And it’s going to be one of the expensive ones. Do you hear me?”

  “Whoa. Don’t bust a blood vessel there, sis. I was just pulling your chain.” Gideon had just a small smile on his face. The jerk. “I actually saw the sofa that I want about two stores ago, but it was so much fun watching your expression when I kept turning them all down that I couldn’t resist.”

  “Uuurrgghh!” Amy screamed in frustration, pounding his shoulder with both fists until he laughingly begged her to stop.

  “What’s up? Didn’t you get enough sleep last night?” he teased.

  Amy ground her teeth in irritation. Gideon had been plucking her nerves like a guitar right from the very beginning. Just like when they were kids. She wondered when she would be old enough that he wouldn’t be able to push her buttons so easily. Probably never.

  “Actually, no,” Amy replied. “I didn’t sleep all that well. I had some pretty whacked-out dreams last night.” Amy left out the part about Rhys and their wild sexcapade. She did not intend to discuss her sex life with her brother.

  “You know, I had some interesting dreams last night too,” said Gideon as they started walking for the door to head out to the car. “I could have sworn that I’d stepped into one of those low-budget fantasy movies about the big bad Vikings terrorizing helpless villagers.”

  Amy stared at him, her mouth open in astonishment.

  “What?” he asked. “You’re looking at me as if I’ve suddenly grown a third eye or something. It was just a dream. I’m not going to pull out a claymore and go all psycho on the sales clerks or anything.”

  “My dream was about an Irish boy who lost his family and spent years alone, starving and poor,” Amy told him. It was Gideon’s turn to look confused.

  They described their dreams to each other in more detail on the drive back home.

  “Wow,” Gideon said, completely mystified. “That’s too weird that we’d have such similar dreams. Maybe we’ve got the twin thing working some funky mojo on us. D’you think?”

  “I hope not. If I had to be witness to any of your other dreams, I think I would end up choosing to never sleep again,” Amy replied with a grin.

  “Hah. You’re so funny.” Gideon lightly pinched her arm.

  “Really, though, I think it’s probably just some strange coincidence,” she said.

  “Yeah, I guess so. But it’s odd that I even remember so much of the dream. It hasn’t faded at all. What about you?” Gideon asked.

  “No, my dream hasn’t faded either,” Amy said. “You’re right. It’s pretty strange.”

  * * * * *

  Rhys walked into the warehouse to discover that everyone had been looking for him last night. Four Immortals were waiting when he returned, all of them looking tired and worn out. Baron had a bruise on his cheek that was just starting to darken.

  “Rhys. It’s about fucking time you showed the hell up,” he muttered angrily. “When your cell phone rings twenty times every ten minutes, maybe you should think about actually answering it,” he continued to complain. “You know, it’s that little button you push with your finger. It lets you talk to the hardworking, reliable people who are madly trying to reach you with important information.”

  Rhys ignored the sarcasm. There was no way he was going to admit that his cell phone had sat in his coat pocket on the couch in Amy’s apartment all night, or that he hadn’t even checked it for messages yet.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, taking in the tight, drawn looks on their faces.

  “Doyle’s dead,” answered Kane.

  What? “How?”

  All of a sudden, Rhys was brutally reminded of Amy’s dream. She’d told him about it that morning but at the time he’d dismissed it as unimportant, a coincidence. Fuck, he should know by now there were no coincidences.

  He was stunned. His senses and psychic abilities should have warned him that something was going down, but he hadn’t had a clue.

  He must be even more distracted than he’d realized. There was no good excuse, but his feelings for Amy and his dreams about her must somehow be blocking him.

  The guilt hit him hard, flattening him like a solid blow to the stomach. Ah crap, Doyle. What the hell did you get yourself into?

  Rhys had been in Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great, where an uncommon number of demons had been feeding off the depraved nobles of her court. Rhys had wandered more in those days, going where he was sure of being able to bag the most demons, not wanting to put down roots or settle where people might become accustomed to having him around.

  He’d come across Doyle and Alric on a cold night in St. Petersburg when they were having a little trouble handling a group of watchers that had outnumbered them about six to one. Rhys had pitched his sword arm into the fray to even the odds. Afterward they’d gone their separate ways but had come across one another every so often and kept in touch—at least as much as you could in those days, without the benefit of cell phones and the internet.

  Rhys had tried to avoid it, but Doyle and Alric had eventually talked him into going to America, back when the continent was still a fledgling nation full of promise. The strength and determination of the immigrants to this land, their hope and determination to build something better for themselves, had appealed to the three Immortals. They’d spent a hundred years moving through the growing towns, sometimes alone, at other times working side by side. The cities around them had sprouted, getting bigger and more diverse until the Immortals had been forced to spread out, each taking on a different large area to protect.

  Rhys had developed a soft spot for New Orleans, but he’d eventually gravitated to the Midwest, settling in Chandler. Doyle had gone on to New York and it had only been in the last ten years or so that he’d drifted back to Rhys’ neck of the woods. And Alric…well, Alric had been through his own personal hell, but he’d come back to them recently through the grace of one brave woman.

&nb
sp; Rhys had been pretty irritated when Doyle had rolled into town. He’d always preferred to work alone, even in the early days. Eventually, though, time had passed, as it always did, and Rhys had become less diligent in his resistance. He’d even half-resigned himself to the presence of the other Immortal.

  Rhys had let his guard down, let the comfortable feeling settle inside him, and when Doyle asked him to take train Duncan, he’d actually found himself liking the sincere twenty-five-year-old. Instead of simply completing the training and sending the kid on his way, Rhys had agreed to Duncan’s request to stay.

  For twenty-five years the two of them worked together as a team. They fought side by side and became close friends…closer than Rhys had allowed himself to get to anyone else in the long years of his Immortality. But ultimately, Rhys’ curse to forever lose the people he cared about had raised its ugly head. Duncan was dead. And now Doyle was gone too.

  His fists clenched at his sides. He couldn’t let the same thing happen to Amy.

  “When?” Rhys asked, looking at Kane, who was the strongest psychic among them.

  “I saw something in my dreams. I thought that you would have seen the same.” Kane ran one hand through his mop of curly hair, already unruly, which suggested that he’d done a lot of that in the last few hours. “I knew it was Doyle but I think something was purposely blocking the scene from me. I still can’t tell how he died. Strong powers are involved in this—especially if they had the ability to keep this from you and block most of it from me.”

  Rhys didn’t feel any better knowing that something had purposely jammed his psychic powers. He still should have known something was going on—he should have been paying more attention to the dark forces gathering in his own town.

  Damn it. He should have been able to at least alert Doyle, but he’d been so wrapped up in his own fucking drama that he hadn’t been paying attention to the warnings—and there had been warnings. Every night when he dreamed about Amy.