But, as tempting as the money was, a large part of me was relieved that it hadn’t worked today and didn’t want to keep at it. I didn’t want to be involved in this, and I didn’t want to help other creatures into the world, that could, possibly, one day turn on humans and destroy us. Even if Cormac said a worse alternative could happen if he didn’t, I wasn’t sure I should believe him. I only had his word for it. I had to keep remembering that.
“No. I can’t do it. We’ve sat here for hours waiting for nothing. I’m going to work tomorrow night.”
“Fine, I’ll give you tomorrow night off, but the night after we need to try again.”
It bought me time, so I agreed. Maybe I’d make an exit before then. I decided that this wasn’t worth the information I was maybe going to get. It didn’t look like I was going to be any help to the situation so why hang around and get killed?
Chapter Thirteen
“Help! Cormac!” I’d woken up with something hard pressed firmly against me. It had felt like a wooden board until I opened my eyes and realized I was pressed up against the ceiling. That’s when I had started screaming.
“Jo?” Cormac said as he ran to my room. “Open the door!”
I locked it every night. “I can’t, I’m…” before I could finish, the door lay splintered half on the frame and half on the floor. Cormac stood there, in loose sleep pants and nothing else, looking like a warrior, with a physique to match, ready to do battle.
He looked up and immediately relaxed. “You scared the shit out of me” he said. “Why the hell did you scream like that?”
“Really? You need me to explain?”
“For someone who wears the most banged up sneakers I’ve ever seen, you sure like expensive lingerie.”
I was so distressed about being stuck to the ceiling, I didn’t care I was wearing a silk black teddy that was cut very high and very low.
“You have to help me. I can’t get down.” I was trying not to sound whiney, but I was pretty sure I failed.
“You just need to relax. Once you do, you’ll drop back down,” his voice had an odd tone as he said this.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me,” I said trying to sound fierce but I missed by a mile.
I closed my eyes, did yoga breathing and imagined myself on a sunny beach. All while I remained glued to the ceiling. I opened my eyes and looked pathetically to Cormac.
I watched him, as he stepped onto the bed. “I know you get agitated when people touch you.”
“No, I don’t.” His touch did agitate me, just for a different reason than he thought.
“Yes, you do. I’m going to leech off some of the energy you’re producing.”
“Just do it.”
He reached up and ran his hand along the length of my leg, and I felt a strange sensation, like the bubbles of champagne popping against my skin. Then before I had any warning, I wasn’t stuck to the ceiling anymore.
Cormac caught me on my way down, not that he needed to with the bed beneath us. He let my legs swing down, and my body was flush to his. Sensations bombarded me. The heady feeling of being pressed to him immediately replaced the relief over not being stuck to the ceiling. I looked at him and he was staring at my lips.
“You can let me go, now,” I said. I needed to stop this before it began. If he kissed me, it was game over.
He dropped his arms that had been encircling my back, and I slowly moved away from him. Probably a little too slowly, but hey, nobody’s perfect. The way I was feeling right now, I was happy I had been able to pull away at all.
Once I got a comfortable distance away from him, I looked back to see him smirk. The bastard knew he was hot.
“Don’t be so happy with yourself. I’m young and single and it’s been a while is all,” I tried saying it as if it was no big deal.
“Really? How long is that exactly?”
“None of your business.” There was no way he knew I’d never had sex. He was definitely bluffing.
“I don’t think you’ve ever had sex. I think you’re scared.”
“Do you really think you can goad me into sleeping with you?”
“No? Not working?”
“No.”
“And here comes the attitude. You were much cuter when you were stuck to the ceiling saying ‘help me, Cormac’.”
“Maybe I am a bit rough around the edges, but whose fault is that? Your people abandoned me. I would think you wouldn’t be so condescending, considering that.”
“Jo, you need to lighten up a little. Not everything is an attack. I understand what it must have been like. I wasn’t passing judgment.”
“Really? It sure sounded like you were.”
“You don’t have to fight me at every turn. I could help you.” The sincerity in his voice made my senses reel. He meant what he said. But he was still the guy who ordered me shot. Every day I was here, the memory of it seemed to fade a little bit more. But I couldn’t forget that I’d be road kill, complete with tire tracks across my back, if I got in the way of what he thought his responsibilities were. He might mean well now, but that could change in a heartbeat. He couldn’t be trusted.
“Think about it. In the mean time, we are training tomorrow at eight. I’m canceling your shift.”
“Did you get me any answers yet?” I asked, as I tried to find any reason I could to cancel.
“Not yet, but I should have something by tomorrow night. I’ll tell you then.” He smiled, knowing he had me, and walked out of my room.
Chapter Fourteen
Ever since I’d gotten stuck to the ceiling last night, I’d been terrified to go outside. The only thing I could imagine was floating away into the clouds. No one had been guarding the door to the penthouse all day, it was the perfect opportunity to get of there, and now, instead of making a dash for it, I was afraid of turning into a helium balloon and popping. This was beyond Murphy’s Law. Lately, I felt like Murphy had written my entire life’s script.
I was staring out the windows in the living room when Dodd strolled in.
“Hey, Jo! What are you up to?”
I kept looking at the pretty clouds, wondering how far up I’d get before I’d drop. “Why do you keep talking to me like we are friends?”
“You can seriously hold a grudge.”
“Only when I’m crossed.”
“Okay, let’s just settle this already. Here!”
I turned, just as he threw a gun at me. I screamed but caught it anyway. “Is this loaded?”
“What’s the point of carrying otherwise?”
I looked at him, wearing a large sweatshirt and jeans. He looked like a kid.
“Hey, psycho, maybe you shouldn’t throw it?”
“If five right to the noggin didn’t take you out, do you really think a stray would do it?”
He made a good point.
“Now, shoot me.”
“It’s not the same. You know you won’t die.”
“Yes, that’s true. But it doesn’t make it pleasant.”
I pondered the idea for a minute, and found I liked it. “Fine, but this doesn’t make us even.”
I looked him over, deciding on where I was going to take my shot.
“Hang on, let me go stand near the bar where it’s tiled. I don’t know how many more couches Cormac has in storage.” He crossed the room and stood there, arms out, and motioned that he was ready.
I aimed and shot him in the kneecap, and he immediately collapsed on the ground groaning.
“Really? The knee? That was just mean!”
“What’s going on?” Buzz walked into the room and looked at Dodd on the floor and then to me.
“I let her shoot me to even up,” Dodd said still groaning from the floor.
Before I even thought about it, I shot Buzz in the knee, and then the other one, before he’d even had time to collapse.
“Awww! Why did I get two?” Buzz said, now lying next to Dodd.
“Because you pulled the trigger.”
As I watched them both squirming on the floor, I realized I did actually feel better. It probably wasn’t the therapy a professional would recommend, but it worked better than I could have imagined.
Three hours later Buzz, Dodd, Ben and I were playing Texas Hold’Em and doing shots of tequila. I still didn’t trust them. I wasn’t even sure if I liked them, but I decided I didn’t hate them.
We’d had a long heart to heart after they had eventually been able to get off the floor. In their minds, they had done what was needed to keep everyone safe. It was part of the contract negotiated between the Keepers and the other races they transported. Any human witnesses were to be killed. It was negotiated long before any of them had been born. If humans found out about the portal, and the other races, they’d bring in the army.
Tracker, the man I’d seen turn into a werewolf, didn’t get his name by accident, I was told. He was among the most viscous of his group and one that didn’t let anything slide by.
“What happened to everybody’s pants?” Cormac asked. We all turned from our poker and shots to where he stood in the doorway.
“Retribution, it’s not a pretty thing” Dodd explained.
Cormac nodded, not asking anything else about it. “Jo, if I could pry you away for a moment, I need a word.”
I put my poker hand face down upon the felt of the table Dodd had ordered set up by the windows. “Don’t look at my cards. I’ll know.”
I followed Cormac into his area of the apartment, the half I’d never seen. The living room and bar area were what I considered neutral territory. My room was my sanctuary.
I’d discovered there was no kitchen the first time I was hungry, but considering that I could order anything I wanted, at any time of night and have it within minutes, I quickly understood the lack of one. Cormac seemed far from domesticated. The urge to cook had probably never struck him.
As we walked down the hallway to his area, there was a large bedroom to my left with its door wide open. From my quick glance, it was done in dark browns and navy. An enormous bed played center stage. I breathed a sigh of relief, as we walked past that room. He opened the next door on the left, to what was an office. Bookcases lined the walls, and a large, impressive, wooden desk sat in front of another wall of windows.
He pulled out a chair for me before he sat down behind the desk.
“Well?” I asked.
“We hit a couple of snags checking into things. You’re definitely half Keeper, but we can’t seem to trace who your parent is. We believe it’s because the genetics from the other side of your lineage has corrupted the line too much to be distinguished.
“There are several races that come in through the portal. Most of them you’ve heard of in some variation or form, because as much as there are rules in place for secrecy, over the centuries things have leaked out. I told you Vitor is of a race that human’s would refer to as Fae, and that is what the other part of your lineage is. It wasn’t obvious at first because our blood is dominant, and for the most part, wipes out all other traits. Problem is it mingles just enough to obscure any answers. To be honest, I’m not sure how I missed it initially. You’ve got Fae eyes. I knew they were different, it just didn’t click at first.”
I leaned back in my chair contemplating what that meant for me. I felt like every day, no matter what I did or didn’t do somehow I was dragged deeper into this mess. “So, in other words you can’t give me any answers?” I asked, aggravated by the situation. Finding out I had some alien Fae blood running through me didn’t even daunt me at this point, after what I’d seen lately, nothing was really a shock. What bothered me was, if I didn’t know who my mother was, how would I ever find out who had attacked her? And I realized at that moment, my motives had changed. I had always wanted to know what I was, now I wanted to know who had hurt her. She hadn’t wanted to leave me. If she had, she would have done it as soon as I was born. She had been hurt and on the run. She’d been trying to protect me from whoever was hurting her.
The only thing I knew now was that she was Fae. If she had been one of the Keepers, she would have healed pretty quickly, maybe even before she made it to the church. The priest had also said I had her eyes, Fae eyes. So my father was the Keeper. And as of right now, he was suspect number one on my list of who hurt her.
“It just means it’s going to be a slower process. Is that a problem?” Cormac’s voice jarred me back to the present.
I knew what problem he was referring to, was I still willing to help him. “My ability to contribute seems to be going slower than predicted as well, so I guess it’s a wash.” I didn’t add that my options for getting information were limited, at the moment. He knew that, anyway. I didn’t feel the need to tell him that I was now afraid to leave the building.
“I see you’re making friends?” The chair scraped against the hardwood floor as he stood, his muscular frame silhouetted by the late afternoon sun behind him. Even in the shadows, I detected a smug smile on his face.
“Hardly,” I scoffed.
“I’m glad. It’s good,” he said, disregarding my answer.
“Don’t speak to me like that.”
“Like what?” He seemed honestly bewildered by my tone.
“Like you know what’s best for me.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right. Don’t talk to anyone and don’t make friends. It’s horrible,” he mocked.
“You are a condescending ass.”
“And I can see your claws are back out, so why don’t we just cut this conversation short and get to work. I don’t want you all prickly when you need to focus.”
I watched as he walked to the door and held it open for me.
“You have no idea what you’re even doing, do you?”
“You’re right. I’ve got no idea what your problem is, now.”
“You try to manage me. I’ve gotten along perfectly well for…”
“Yes, yes, I know. You need no one. You’re an island unto yourself.”
I walked over to the door and paused next to him before I walked out. “Go ahead, mock me, but don’t kid yourself. I’ve lived alone my whole life and playing nice for a couple of hours with your buddies doesn’t change anything. I don’t need them. And more importantly, I don’t need you!”
I saw something in his eyes harden and a muscle in his jaw twitch. I’d pissed him off. Good. I was sick of him treating me like a pawn that he could maneuver whatever way he chose. It might not have been the brightest move on my part, but god, it felt good. I had a history off chopping my nose off to spite my face. It was nice to know I was still the same girl.
When we got back to the living room, Cormac was visibly annoyed. When he asked who was coming with us to train, both Dodd and Buzz backed out.
“What the hell did you do now?” Dodd asked the second Cormac was out of earshot, having left to go change.
“It’s not my fault he’s all pissy, and why are you walking so funny?” I couldn’t help but notice his odd gait across the room.
“It’s totally you, and you’re the reason I’m walking funny, too. I think my kneecap fused back funny. Now, I’m going to have to go get them re-broken by the doc.”
“You can’t get mad now. You said I could shoot anywhere.” Before I could defend myself any further, Cormac was back.
He didn’t speak, just walked toward the door. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to talk to him anyway. Cormac and I spent the rest of the night not speaking, while we stared at rubber balls that wouldn’t move.
Chapter Fifteen
“What do you think of this?” I asked Buzz, holding up a charcoal grey cashmere sweater dress. “Do you think it would be flattering? I hate trying stuff on.”
“It’s great. Can we go soon?”
“Why, is this boring you?”
“No, I love it.” I’d never known Buzz was capable of such sarcasm. It made me l
augh.
This was the fifth shopping trip this week. Every since I’d had words with Cormac, there had been more tension than ever. Now we seemed to be wrapped up in a tit for tat battle. He’d canceled all my shifts, saying that training was more important. I’d retaliated to his power grab by dragging his men shopping and spending thousands on clothes daily.
Only problem was, the expenditures didn’t seem to bother him. I’d changed tactics two days ago. I’d always been told I was beautiful and I wasn’t beyond using what I had. I knew that he found me attractive, so I’d stopped wearing jeans and sneakers every day. Skirts and dresses, stilettos and perfume were my new arsenal. I could see him watching me, and I acted like I barely knew he was in the room.
He was a man with a large ego. I couldn’t really blame him for it. He had classic chiseled features, coloring to die for, and a body that would win competitions. It was just plain gluttony that he was rich and powerful too. He was used to women falling at his feet, and I knew that it drove him a little crazier every time he saw me that I seemed to be over any attraction I had felt. Not that I was, but boy, was I getting good at faking it.
“Oh, no! You’re not getting that one!”
I looked over at Buzz, then back at the silky red dress in my hands. “You’re right, this one is perfect. Do you think the red shoes I got on Monday would match?”
He didn’t answer, just groaned. All the guys seemed to be aware of what I was doing, even though I held to my denials. Every guy but Cormac, that was. It was strange, considering he seemed like he was a bright man in every other matter.
“I can’t take this anymore. I’ll be on the bench.”
“Yes, you should relax. I need some new lingerie after this, and I don’t want to tire you out.” I watched Buzz shake his head, as he went to sit outside the store. Cormac always had someone tailing me everywhere I went. Sometimes I liked to mess with them and make them go shopping with me. None of them ever said no. Cormac must have told them they had to be nice to me.
The Keepers (The Alchemy Series) Page 10
