“Damien?”
He made the mistake of looking at her. Her long lashes fluttered, ones he’d kissed, licked and touched with the tip of his finger. Irresistible.
“Damien, I’m sorry. I didn’t ask him to call you. I told him not to, but . . . I guess he thought he had to, because of the . . .” Her hand rested on her stomach, and his hands tightened around the steering wheel. “Well, I just think maybe it will be best for us both if someone else does this detox thing with me.”
He grunted.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate you coming all the way here, but I have no idea what is going to happen and . . . Damien, I don’t want you to see me like this.” Her voice was a graveled whisper of torment.
“There’s no one else.” There was no one else because only Balen, Jedrik and now Delara knew about this. If Waleron found out, there was the issue of the Wraiths getting involved, and of course Trinity. Most likely, the Wraiths would insist on death and Trinity . . . well, who knew what that bitch would do. Throw her to the wolves, literally.
“Maybe Jedrik can—”
“If Jedrik disappears for any length of time, Waleron will know. I am a solitary and Waleron contacts me through email or cell. I’m the safer choice.”
“But—”
All he had to do was meet her eyes and she became quiet. Her reaction to his forbidding appearance had been very different the last time they were together. As he could recall, she’d laughed when he glared at her, then jumped into his arms and bowled him over onto the bed.
“Maybe I can do this myself and you can—”
“I’ll deal with this shit.” His hands gripped the steering wheel so hard that the leather cracked under the pressure.
“I’m not anyone’s shit,” Abby retorted.
He could feel her eyes delving into him and if he knew Abby well enough, he’d swear she was pursing her lips in an adorable pouting expression. He remembered the same expression that night. She was mad at him for calling her a little slip of a witch. He had laughed. Then laughed even more when she threw a pillow at him. That started the pillow fight that ended up being a mad sexual encounter among thousands of feathers.
“At the moment you’re my shit, Abb,” Damien said. He waited for the punch in the arm or her words of retaliation. It never came. He chanced a glance at her and saw her staring out the window, her expression drawn and . . . forlorn.
It was instinctive. He reached across the space between them and swept a finger across her temple, pushing the strands of hair away from her face. Then slowly he ran a finger down her cheek. Suddenly common sense blasted back into him and he drew away, not daring to look at her.
“Christ, Abb. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that . . .” How did he say this without hurting her feelings? “I never wanted a child.” And this was why he kept his distance from any sort of relationship with anyone. Dealing with a woman’s emotional baggage was like lighting his head on fire.
She gave a single nod. “Yeah. Me neither. Guess we don’t always get what we want.”
“You won’t be a vampire, Abb.” He chanced a glance at her, noticing the determination in her jaw. He slammed on the brakes and the car tailgating behind honked and swerved around him. He pulled onto the shoulder and forced the gear into park. “If you don’t drink blood, you can’t Transition. Period. I won’t let you drink, Abby.”
“Yeah,” she said without looking at him.
“Abb, look at me!” When she ignored him, he grabbed her by the chin and forced her to meet his eyes. He might hate being here, but he never shirked his responsibilities and right now Abby was his, to make certain she didn’t turn. “You won’t be a vampire, okay? I won’t let it happen. We’ll do this detox shit and you can go back to your coven and we can forget any of this happened.”
Silence.
His fingers dug into her chin, she tried to jerk away, but he only strengthened his grip. Her hand reached up and latched onto his wrist, pulling his hand away from her face. His libido went through the roof as the memory of her soft touch on his skin exploded into images of that wild night.
“Abby,” he said, voice barely a whisper.
She met his eyes and they stared at one another for what seemed like minutes, but was mere seconds. She licked her dry lips and he groaned with pure torment. Christ, this was bad.
Suddenly she released his wrist and abruptly turned away. “So what happens, Damien?” Abby asked. “I live in a box and you guard it?”
“Pretty much.” God, that sounded horrible. “Balen says it will be . . . well, that you can’t leave until you no longer have cravings. That means the poison in your blood has gone.”
“Think the baby will survive the detox?”
“Christ, Abb.” He slammed the car into gear and swerved back into traffic. “I don’t know.”
She shrugged and leaned her head back on the headrest. “Yeah, guess not.”
Damien noticed the slight gesture from the corner of his eyes—her hand unconsciously caressing her abdomen. It was a sight he’d remember for the rest of his life. As if she was stroking her baby with the tip of her fingers, so unaware, so peaceful and yet he knew it would be anything but serene.
Balen said she’d lose the baby.
An ache sat in the pit of his stomach for something he didn’t even want to care about. Abby had been a one-night fling. A hot sexy witch he fucked while he’d been in town. That was all it was supposed to be. He had made that clear before he’d taken her back to his hotel. She’d known he was leaving for Florida the next day.
He was supposed to forget all about her.
But he never had.
Chapter 13
“I want to talk about your childhood today,” Rebecca said.
Rayne sat crossed-legged on the cobalt couch, two white throw pillows—which she’d thrown across the room a number of times—nestled beside her, and an assortment of stuffed animals perched along the back of the couch.
The thoughts of Kilter had been pushed from the forefront of her mind by Delara’s unusual behavior lately. In the past two weeks, the usual straightforward Delara was being quiet and standoffish, not sleeping at the gallery most nights and returning in the wee hours of the morning. She had dark circles under her eyes, and Rayne had heard her arguing at dawn outside in the alley with Jedrik. Obviously, he’d been waiting for her and she was not impressed.
“Rayne?”
“Yeah, sorry.” She jerked back to the present and tried to concentrate, a difficult task considering she hated thinking about herself. “I don’t remember much,” Rayne replied. And what she did, she didn’t want to talk about. Not because it was bad, but because it hurt to think about the loss.
“Let’s start with your parents. What were they like?”
“I was adopted. Then when I was four they died. Car crash. I barely knew them.” Her father received an emergency call from the hospital; a bus had flipped over on highway 400. They needed him and her mom in the E.R. Both being doctors, they often had emergencies, and Anton, also a doctor, neighbor and good friend, looked after her in these types of situations.
They died at dawn on their way home.
“Rayne, you’re avoiding the question,” Rebecca said.
Okay, she was. She hated to think about what she’d lost so young. “Mom was quiet and patient, the calm, caring type. I tested her patience, kept her on her toes with my need to explore. Once I walked out the front door and went two streets over to sit with my legs hanging in a neighboring pool. She called the police and my dad had to come home from work. The owners of the house found me and I got a lecture from the police about wandering.”
“What did your parents do?”
“I think they were just relieved to have me home. They cried when the police pulled up with me in the car.”
“So you were a pretty brave little kid?”
“I guess. I mean I wasn’t scared of much.” Plus she had Serafina always near, although she kept h
er friend a secret from her parents after they gave her a lecture on never calling her Scar to life. As a child, it was the most amazing discovery, and when her parents weren’t around, she called Serafina to rise and they’d play games and laugh. She couldn’t tell Rebecca that though.
“And your father, what was he like?”
“I sought his approval for everything, but it never seemed good enough.”
“I’m certain that isn’t true, Rayne. Your perception maybe, which is a pattern of anorexia—never feeling wanted or good enough. But it isn’t true.”
She shrugged. It didn’t matter anymore. Her father was gone.
“Did Anton take your father’s place?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it possible that you tried to make Anton proud, needing that approval since you could no longer get it from your father?”
Boy, she was good. It sucked that she was so insightful, but then again maybe it wasn’t. She was getting better and it was all do to Rebecca. “Yeah, I guess. Worse actually.” Because Anton forced her to use her capabilities, and she was never strong enough or good enough for him. He pushed and pushed for hours a day. Even when she was exhausted in mind and body, he forced her to do more. “I could never live up to his expectations.”
“He was a terrible person, Rayne. You know that, don’t you?” Yeah, Kilter had told her to divorce him that day on the roof. The day he’d left her behind. “He may have suffered from OCD and no matter what you did, you’d never meet his expectations.” No, he suffered from malevolence and lust for power. She hadn’t known that as a child, but she knew that now.
He’d trained her as if she were a robot; pushing her to the limit, until she collapsed with exhaustion. When they moved to the compound, she could remember a woman talking to Anton. She stayed in the shadows, but she kept glancing her way. It was then that Roarke joined them and she knew, even as a child, that they were different. Of course, Rebecca couldn’t be told any of this.
“You were a child who lost her parents in a horrific accident. Of course, you needed approval and love from whoever was closest to you. Unfortunately, that became Anton. We will reconstruct your perception of not being good enough for your father. Okay?”
Rayne nodded and took out her journal.
“I want you to write down one memory of you and your father together, then we’ll re-write it.”
Rayne wrote about the day her father taught her how to ride her bike. She always thought he was upset with her for falling so many times. She cried only when she saw the disappointment in his eyes.
As Rebecca helped her rewrite the story, she began to realize that he hadn’t been frustrated or disappointed with her inability. No, it was possible that her father had felt her pain when she scraped her knees and palms. He hurt because his daughter hurt. Her father had been proud of his daughter, who got right back on that bike despite her injuries.
****
Weeks of constant thirst. Mouth so dry it felt as if she had sandpaper for a tongue and dried, cracked glue at the back of her throat. But it wasn’t water she craved, it was the thick warmth of blood. The urgency to sink her teeth into anything that was breathing. Everything else around her was a blur. The scent of a man nearby had her insides coil with anticipation of easing the suffering, the thirst that refused to let go.
She heard a voice in the distance, an echo inside her head as if it were her own, but different. “Please,” it said. Begging and harsh with a hiss in every word.
“Water,” the deep Irish voice said.
The bed sagged under his weight and the scent grew stronger. Blood. Fresh blood. It smelled so good. It would end the thirst, end the pain that made it difficult to swallow. In the haze of her vision, she saw him . . . Damien. No. God no, don’t make me . . .
The urgency was too strong, like a great white shark seeing its prey. No control. Just hunger.
Abby jumped. A strange unfamiliar hiss emerged from her lungs as she went for his throat. Fingernails racked into his flesh. The sound of a breaking glass. Hands covering her own, dragging her away.
“Abby. Stop.” The voice was shouting like a tuba pounding into her head. Damien? What was wrong with him? Why did he sound panicked?
Thirsty.
So thirsty.
Through her blurred vision, she saw red lines dripping down his flesh. She licked her lips and frantically pushed at the hands.
“Nooo!” she screamed.
Wild hunger took over as she fought him. Her voice no longer distinguishable, she cursed and hissed, fought the restraints of his hands. He forced her to lie back as she kicked and screamed, his hands gripping her upper arms and pressing her slight frame into the mattress. Her pulse jolted as if electricity were jerking through her body. Her body flung back and forth, desperate to get free and end the torture.
Just one drop, to stop the pain.
“Abby, for Christ’s sake, listen to my voice.”
She shook her head, managing to get an arm free as her knee came up between them and the blockade. She punched out with a fist and heard a grunt, her other arm became free as the weight on the mattress eased.
“Fuck,” he said.
Abby’s eyes widened and focused in on the blood now dripping from his neck and arms where her nails had dug into the flesh. A loud hiss echoed in the room and she leapt from the bed. She hit his solid chest and was immediately thrown backwards, landing back on the bed.
“Abby, please.”
That voice, she knew that voice.
“Abb, you have to listen to me.”
Thirsty. Her eyes darted around the room, unable to see anything clearly except the redness trickling down his skin.
“Abb!” The voice said louder. “It’s me, Damien.” Footsteps moving closer.
Damien. She knew that name. Was he here? Who was trying to hurt her? The scent was so strong and it reminded her of passion, of . . . .
Hands suddenly grabbed her wrists and bolted them above her head on the bed. Instinctively, she reacted, squirming, fighting, screaming until the dryness in her throat caught her voice and there was no longer any sound emerging.
She struggled until she no longer could raise her limbs. There was a sudden release of her wrists as if the shackles had been released. She lay still for a few seconds, her mind searching for what was happening. Footsteps. A door opened and then slammed shut.
It was gone. The blood was gone.
She scrambled off the bed and ran to the door. Her fists pounded and pounded.
“Please,” she cried over and over again.
Time meant nothing as she clawed at the door for hours, until finally she collapsed to the floor with exhaustion.
“No fuckin’ way,” Damien shouted into the phone as he paced back and forth across the scuffed hardwood floor. “I can't do this. Screw it. The girl is way past saving. We’re too late.”
“It is the poison in her blood, Damien. It eats away at your insides until every sense focuses on one goal—blood.” Balen’s voice was calm and purposeful. “Do not let it sway you from the purpose. This will pass. Trust me, I’ve been there.”
Damien kicked out at the ragged area carpet that had pastel stripes and frayed tasseled ends. “She’s crazy. That woman is not Abby anymore. I'm telling you we’re too late.”
Balen sighed. “Unless she has tasted blood again, it’s not too late.”
“No wonder the Wraiths wanted to kill us if we drank from a vamp.” Damien paused outside the door of the bedroom and peered through the bulletproof glass Jedrik had installed.
“She’s been lying on the floor for hours.”
“It’s a thousand times worse at night. Keep the door locked and leave her be. It took me weeks to learn that being around anything with blood running through it made it a hell of a lot worse. It’s almost dawn, she should be out of it by now.”
Damien never wanted to enter that room again, yet somewhere beneath the creature he tried to calm was Abby. “How long?�
��
Silence.
“Hell, Balen, I’m not good at this shit. I never wanted a woman. This is bull crap.” Damn it, he could feel the pain in his words, the emotions that he swore to never feel again. Abby would destroy him. Seeing her like this—the destruction of the soul was by far the last thing he needed in his life.
Danielle’s voice blasted into this head like a trumpet. “Don't you dare give up on her, you bastard. Stop thinking of yourself and help her get through this.”
“Tell your woman to get out of my head,” Damien said and hung up the phone.
It was the beginning of the end. End of his understanding, beginning of madness.
He ran his hand through his raven strands and opened the door. He stared down at the sleeping figure lying on the cold floor. She was curled up in a ball, so innocent looking yet—
“Damien?” Her eyes flickered open and he was relieved to see that they appeared sane, not red with rage and thirst. She was often like this during the day, her normal self, confused and scared.
He picked her up in his arms and strode over to the bed, gently laying her down and bringing the sheets up to cover her. His scowl increased at the sight of her bleeding and bruised fists.
“I’m . . . sorry. For last night.” She’d said that every morning for the past two weeks and yet she had no recollection of what she’d done. It wasn’t hard to figure out, with the scratches on his neck and arms. Now he knew why Jedrik had left chains in the cupboard. He had to admit, he’d been too cocky, thinking he’d be able to control the waif with his muscle power.
He nodded.
“Leave me here.” Her voice was soft and quiet like the trickle of a stream. “Go home, Damien.”
“You will die.” Damien stated the obvious.
“This is my fault. I did this. I can’t . . . I can’t any longer,” she whispered. “And neither can you.” A tear escaped the corner of her eye and he almost—almost reached forward to wipe it away.
Do not go near her, he told himself again and again. Following his own warning was difficult during the day when she was more herself, innocent and sweet, that girl he’d lost his own common sense to.
STEP (The Senses) Page 14
