by Jamie Magee
“Oh, God,” she said as her shaking hand reached for his face, to the blood pouring down from his eye.
“Immortal,” he rasped, taking her hand. Her fingertips were warm now; a sign of their victory, one that would be short lived if Judge didn’t act fast.
He moved her again, this time to the bathroom. He had her vanity light over her hands and was searching for the knife clasped to his belt when King and Dagen appeared.
Judge glanced up at King, unable to hide his leer.
“Do you want your ‘zap’ award now or later?” King asked with a lifted brow.
“I want you to hold her still,” Judge said matter-of-factly. Unlike the other revelation Talley had given Judge, this bit of information was not something Judge needed to take time to process; it was something he had no choice but to take action on.
Once his words registered Adair jerked back, defensive and tense.
King braced her shoulders. Though his touch was light, she couldn’t move. His energy had all but paralyzed her.
“I should have figured this out already,” Judge said, glancing up to her troubled gaze then down to her fingertips. “It was like you had a spotlight on you.”
His knife sliced into her sore thumb, causing her knees to go weak, but King held her up.
Slowly, from her flayed skin, Judge pulled out what looked like a long splinter from the edge of her thumb, an impossibly long piece.
Oddly, though Adair’s gaze was wide, a sigh left her.
He searched the rest of her fingertips and sliced two more of them down the side finding more of the same.
“You’ve been carrying a part of him with you. You made it easy on him,” Judge said solemnly, keeping his head down, intent on his work. Talley had showed him where every shard was when Judge looked into his mind, but Judge couldn’t leave it at that. He had to make sure not one drop of Talley’s essence was on her, otherwise he’d always be able to find her.
“How in the hell?” Adair said between pants.
“You clawed him when he attacked. He was covered in the dirt and wood from his grave,” Judge said after a moment.
He handed the pieces he’d recovered to Dagen. “Do me a favor, will ya? Take those to Alaska or somewhere fun like that until we feel the need to attract our old friend.”
Dagen grinned and then vanished.
“I’ll be close,” King said to Judge as he let Adair go.
Judge had her hands under the warm water, carefully washing the blood away and ensuring there was nothing else hidden beneath her skin. He didn’t look up when he spoke. “I need supplies. I cut deep.”
King nodded once, then vanished. The silence was somewhat comfortable and right as Adair went to speak King emerged again and rested a med kit by Judge—his kit, the one Judge always had in his saddlebag.
Judge glanced up, a thank you in his gaze. King nodded once, then left. They listened to his footsteps pace through her loft, him open the front door. Adair’s mortal ears couldn’t hear further than that point, but she watched Judge’s gaze. A few seconds later a sarcastic glint came to him, silently telling her King was just outside and was staying there.
Judge felt Adair’s stare on him but he kept to his work. After a few moments he rose above her and reached into the medicine cabinet, retrieving alcohol he needed to cleanse his needle, as if this were his home, and he knew where everything was.
He was pulling his other supplies out of his kit before Adair spoke in a whisper. “You’ve always been here.”
In a tranquil, stunned state she was digesting what she knew now, with what she was aware of before this mess with Talley.
Odd things, like candles she forgot to blow out extinguished, windows she left open locked. There were times when she’d dream of a caress across her brow, someone drawing the covers over her after a fitful nightmare. Comfort. At night, all alone, she found comfort and ached for those hours throughout the day.
Judge nearly smiled, a boyish grin, one she remembered. “I suppose I need a stalker award to go along with my new ‘zap’ one.”
“I’m serious,” Adair said quietly.
She wanted to let her guard down and run into his open arms and forget the five years of hell she’d lived through—because quite frankly her life could not be any more fucked at the moment—but doubt was her defense. She needed a person to trust and a reason to trust them.
He looked up at her, blue to green, oceans of turbulent emotions between them. “I couldn’t let you go. I’m a selfish fool. I know that.” He paused as his gaze shifted over her. “Even though I was no one to you, you kept me sane.”
Adair searched his gaze, taking her time with the knowledge her mind owned once again. “Gwinn is my closest friend.”
Judge stared, unsure where this was going, if she was really suffering from some mortal shock.
“She’s Shade’s Ol’ Lady now, a Sons girl—your brother’s girl.”
He was silent, only offering the calm stare he used when he was searching through minds. Only he couldn’t search hers. He could only hope to read every other sign she was giving him.
“Judge, whose side are you on?”
His response was cold. “What kind of question is that?”
“A legit one.”
He raised his brow, anger and exhaustion weighing on him. “Yours, Adair. No one’s going to hurt you.”
“Because of your vow.”
Silence.
“Gwinn came to me like an angel, right when I needed a gaping hole in my life filled.” Adair searched him, struggling to read him as well. “She lived with me, Judge. She worked with me. We went everywhere together.”
Again silence. He wasn’t seeing the connection, only a reminder that he had tried to give her a better life and failed miserably.
“You were always here.”
One nod.
“So when she showed up at the Boneyard, fighting through her transition, absent of memory, your boy falling hard for her, why did it not occur to you to tell them who she was? Or did you tell them and this is all some twisted game both Gwinn and I are locked in?”
Judge drew his head back, confusion and insult marring his blue gaze.
He doesn’t know, Adair thought.
Judge hesitated, searching his memory. The idea that he could have missed seeing Gwinn day after day for years wasn’t possible. Judge was critical with every single one of his observations. He knew she had a roommate…how did he know? He saw her, right? No, he didn’t. He was shocked when Rasp knew of Gwinn, furious that he didn’t know, too.
“Motherfucker,” he said.
Adair furrowed her brow in question.
Judge shook his head as if he were trying to clear it. He even squinted his eyes.
Adair reached her bloodstained hands to him but hesitated, catching herself. She was determined to remain on the defense until she understood it all.
“Reveca does it all the time, but she’d never—no never—do it here.”
“What?”
Judge looked right at her. “We’ve been here a while, same place, around mortals.”
Adair wasn’t following.
“We have to appear to age, it’s like an illusion spell. Reveca and Thames work together to make sure the lawmen and the mortals around us see us differently than we really are.”
“You think someone spelled you to see Gwinn differently? But not Reveca?”
Judge bit his lip, then reached the cloth in his hand to her thumb to stop the blood from pouring from the wounds he hadn’t stitched yet. “I know you’re afraid of her, I know you have your reasons, but you don’t know her like I do.”
Adair couldn’t help it, she was jealous of this hold Reveca had on him. “She gave you this life. I understand the loyalty.” Not a lie. She just didn’t like it.
“It’s more than loyalty, it’s family,” Judge said in a tone that offered no room for rebuttal. “Gwinn, she confounded Reveca.” Judge glanced to the closed door, to the dir
ection he knew King was. “Reveca went to extremes to bring Gwinn back. She crossed lines I’ve never known her to cross.”
Adair arched a brow. Any fool could feel the sexual tension between King and Reveca. “And they had nothing to do with the fact her first love, back from the dead, was the one with the answers?”
Before this night Gwinn had told Adair about her time at the Boneyard, and kept to the truth as closely as she could without telling Adair she was immortal. Instead she said things like she was sick, and King knew a spell. Before they left for the lounge tonight, as if the truth had to be set free, Gwinn filled in the missing pieces. The information flowed freely because Adair awoke knowing exactly what Escorts and dark angels were along with their curses—along with all the other fun little immortals, including Voyagers. The latter she was hungry to investigate deeper.
“King, him coming to the Boneyard was not easy on her, and yes, I saw the pull—one way or another she’d be with him before it was all said and done.”
“Awful certain for a man who is mad at his president for stepping out on his Ol’ Lady.”
Talon was more than a president to Judge, and Adair knew it, but the weak titles were the only way they were going to get through this sensitive conversation and move on to even more complex ones. Adair was determined to test him against everything Gwinn had told her over the last week or so.
“Talon pulled the trigger on a weapon that wasn’t in his hand. I said she would’ve been with him. Talon made it so without haste. I still can’t fathom why. He’s blocking his reasons.”
Adair had a pretty good idea why, at least her gut did, but like a classic seer she wasn’t speaking her mind until she believed it to be true.
He glanced to the wall, the direction where King was. “Not knowing who Gwinn was, it was too hard on all of us, especially Reveca. She wouldn’t have made it so I remembered Gwinn differently. I swear.”
“Rush remembered her,” Adair said, gauging his reaction.
“He did.” His gaze darted in thought. “Fucking whore—she fucked with me didn’t she?” Judge said, his voice cold again. “Rush was never here, out of town more than in.”
“Miriam?” Adair assumed this was the whore he was referring to.
“She’s the illusion bitch,” Judge growled. “She could do this, couldn’t she?”
This very night Miriam had put forth an illusion in the lounge. Judge and the others were zeroing in for an attack when she caused a fight then vanished in the chaos—they were hunting her. They were also hunting Jade. She was seen on the property. Which is why they found Adair just before she made a critical mistake, or rather Jade found Adair in time.
“I’m sure by now you know her better than I do, at least a different side of her,” Adair said as distantly as she could. She had a vivid imagination, one that liked to torture her when she thought of her nightmares—right now she was witnessing the only man she’d given her heart to plow driving into Miriam.
Reading her, how tense she became, the rapid heartbeat he could hear, the lack of breath because she was holding it, the blood rushing to the surface of her skin, a blush of anger, all told Judge one thing—she was pissed and jealous.
Under different circumstance the emotions might have been a win for him if it meant she cared. Right now, it was a threat to the fragile ground they were traversing.
“No, I don’t.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Adair said with an ‘I got you’ leer. “Five years, you are a man after all—we all have needs.”
He gripped her shoulders. “No.”
“No what?”
There was no easy way to say it. No way to say ‘I only let road whores blow me off, and only when I was pissed and broken by you—because you had some asshole in your bed.’
Five years seemed like a long time to her, but he was an immortal—time wasn’t the same. He was an immortal seer, meaning he spent a lot of his time meditating, sorting through all he had seen. He knew how to draw power from the source, from the universe, without sticking his dick in the closest hole. Now, he wasn’t saying he was celibate—somewhat celibate—years were a walk in the park. It was hard and he wasn’t nearly as empowered as he was when Adair was in his bed, but he was good at fronting his strength.
Besides, mortal wars dominated the last five years—guns were all you needed, and Judge could make the smallest weapon look like the end of times.
His eyes dipped to her lips. “I told you once, you’d be the last girl I’d ever kiss. You remember that?”
She did. When they first began, Adair, believe it or not, trusted him less than she did now. He had tried to get over falling for her by fucking every girl in sight—the boy almost put Shade out of business. Adair was jealous, she was sure he’d get over her, become bored. So she kept a distance at first.
His promises, whispered as he held her, one by one, they opened her heart and before she knew it she was handing it over to him.
“I do.”
His stare filled with reverence. “I keep my vows.”
Adair swallowed noticeably. It was a sweet promise. Hell, it was a toe curling, butterfly swarming, ahhh comment, but still. You could do a lot without kissing.
His eyes flicked over her, remembering the night he’d seen her pull some young, stupid drunk mortal into the room just behind him. Judge left right as Adair slipped her dress off and pulled him down to her—if he hadn’t the boy would have died, gruesomely.
He’d never forgiven her for this. It didn’t matter she didn’t know him, that he was a ghost to her—he was furious and it fueled his anger over the years. It was what he thought of when he did let his ‘tempest’ go down on him. Between his anger, his smoke, and his drink, he could barely recall the times he’d given in, but that was no excuse any woman would take, and rightly so.
Judge glanced over Adair’s body, imagining that dumb, drunk kid’s hands fumbling across her flesh, the few that came after him, imagining Scorpio’s skilled touch—the name she said when she woke hours before—when she woke from his touch. “You remember when I told you I’d shred my existence before I was inside another woman?”
She did. She thought it was an odd way to say ‘until the day I die’ when it was spoken, but then she didn’t know he was immortal.
“I do,” she said, her voice sounding less confident. Did Miriam lie to her?
“I keep my vows.”
“You’re telling me you’re innocent? You blinded me, never expected to have me again and you, the almighty Judge, started to wave a celibacy card?”
No, he’d learned to talk a good game, though. He was quick to make sure the guys thought he was getting more action than he was.
“I am not sinless,” he said as if he’d somehow found his way into a dark and cold confessional booth.
“I haven’t kissed another, I haven’t been inside another.” He paused. “You can’t say the same, so I’d say we’re ‘bout even.”
Once Adair recovered from the shock, or rather humiliation, that he could’ve watched her very, very painful attempts at finding comfort in another, she went to speak, to pick apart his vague confession but he spoke first.
“Miriam targeted me, she admitted it, in front of Talon and Reveca—she said she was pissed I blew her off outside your shop. She knows how to do illusion spells, obviously. Is she skilled enough to cast it the other way? Hide Gwinn from me?”
“Are you really turning this on her? Judge you may not have kissed her or been ‘inside,’ but something happened between you and her.”
“Several times,” he stated flatly. “She went down on me and I made it as degrading and awful as I could.” He paused. “Are you happy now? Do you feel validated? Do you want me to tell you how I passed her off to the other guys? How a few times she thought she was fucking with me and wasn’t? Do you want me to tell you all the ways I thought of killing her because I was sure she was the devil?”
He drew his head back. “I will. Then you can tell me a
ll ‘bout the frat boys slash tourists you drug up here. The ones who stayed to sunrise. Then when we’re done ripping each other’s fuckin’ hearts out, will you answer my fuckin’ question? Could Miriam do that and why?”
“I don’t know,” she said after a tense, quick silence. He wasn’t supposed to have pain in his eyes when she threw Miriam in his face—yet he did. Somehow he’d made her feel guilty. Blunt asshole.
He took her hands gently and prepared to go to work. “Adair.” She looked up at him, her gaze swimming with confusion. His was, too, but he’d deal with the Miriam bitch later. “I was comin’ back for you.” Her gaze widened. “I wasn’t comin’ back until I had revenge, until I knew you were safe. That was my plan at least. I wasn’t…I wasn’t going to last much longer. I knew it to be true.” His eyes fluttered over her. “Still didn’t make it right, bringing you into the life I live, just so I can feel alive.” His gaze narrowed. “I knew it would take time for you to forgive me, to understand if ever at all. It’s a consequence I’ve been expecting. One I knew I had greater chance of me losing you for good than finally having you, but at the very least, you would have known I, I—you would have known what we had.”
Adair’s eyes welled trying to understand how they got here, how it was so easy for him to shut her out. “Did you kill him because of some vow? Was that it? He hurt me and your honor gave you no choice?” Her voice cracked. “How did we get here, Judge?”
Judge swallowed, dropped his head and went back to his work on her hands, numbing her flesh before he began to stich. “Vow or not, I reacted the way I saw fit,” he finally said.
“Saw fit,” she said absently, doing her best to hold on to the calm she had. Her seeing Judge and Talley side by side not only brought her dormant emotions to the surface, but also allowed her to feel the bond they had. In appearance they were the same age, carried themselves the same—lived the same life essentially. There was an unspoken bond between them, one Adair had sensed before she knew they had fought for ages side by side.
