She hurried to his side, sitting him up and helping to guide his legs into a position that would help relieve the pain that she knew was radiating through him and pulsing in his stomach. Placing the bottom of his feet together, she had him draw his heels closer and closer to his damaged crotch, stretching the muscles there to help relieve the injured area. Some of the pain cleared off his face, but it wasn’t a magical fix, and he would be sore for quite some time.
Siobhan had a mean crotch shot.
“What happened?” he managed, his voice sounding strangled. “Why are we fighting?”
“You got a little mentally intimate with our friend Xander,” Siobhan said. “Your psychic connection to him took over, and when he attacked me, you did too.”
Horror warred with pain on Julian’s face, and he immediately scanned her for injury. “Are you hurt? Are you okay?”
“I’m perfectly fine. Don’t worry.”
“Perfectly fine?”
“Yes.”
“Not a scratch?”
“No,” she promised, resting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m good. Really. You didn’t hurt me.”
“Then why the hell am I sitting here with swollen balls?” Julian wiped the sweat off his forehead, moving his legs out of the uncomfortable position she’d put them in so he could bend over, groaning.
Siobhan had to bite back a smile, not because it was funny that he was in pain, but because, despite his pain, he was still annoyed that they’d fought and he’d walked away injured while she was basically untouched. “I’m sorry I had to kick your testicles up into your throat.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You were very powerful when you threw me to the ground.”
“Uh-huh.”
“My back does hurt a bit, if that helps.”
He looked up at her, rolling his eyes as the pain eased enough for him to see the hint of humor in the situation. “Well, as long as I got one good move in, I guess.”
She patted his arm. “I’m trained in self-defense. What can I say?”
“I don’t know, but I can say that I hope you don’t plan on using little Julian anytime soon, because he is taking a long nap while his two friends try to recover.”
Siobhan laughed, knowing that Julian was now going to be just fine. She kissed his cheek, then looked over at Xander as he started to stir. “He won’t be out much longer. I kicked him in the head, but I was holding back.”
“Funny how you didn’t give me that same courtesy.”
“Oh, trust me. I did,” she promised, pressing his hand. “Anyway—you think this guy got the message?”
Julian winced. “Having been in his mind, which is all coming back to me now, by the way, I’m going to say that logic, reason, and even physical force isn’t going to necessarily get through to him. He’s just a vibrating mass of anger and vengeance.”
“No self-interest?”
“I don’t know. I’m new at this occupying other people’s thoughts thing. I don’t know if he can be deterred.”
Xander stirred again, and then Siobhan heard a car approaching from behind them. She turned and saw Kean there, lifting her hand in greeting as he parked and got out of the car.
“It took me a little while to find you,” Kean said, walking over slowly, casting a questioning glance toward Julian. “Everything okay here? Siobhan, I feel like this isn’t the first time I’ve walked in on you looking fresh as a rose with unconscious and wounded men surrounding you.”
Siobhan straightened. “Hilarious. I had to teach Xander a lesson, but Julian’s been in his head, and he says he doesn’t think he’s convinced.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Kean told her. “Problem stays the same though—can’t report him for anything and can’t detain him ourselves without breaking the law. What if you’ve done all you can do until something happens to Melanie?”
Pursing her lips, Siobhan stared at Xander as he slowly opened his eyes, blurrily looking up at the sky as he tried to orient himself. “Yeah, that’s not good enough,” she said, shaking her head. “I have another idea.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Julian
“And how do you know this guy?” Julian asked again, as he sat gingerly in the passenger seat of Siobhan’s car once again, but this time with Kean and Xander in the back, Kean on guard duty and Xander restrained and furious.
Siobhan got into her left lane, sitting easily in her own seat, as though she hadn’t been in a fight with two men. “I just know him.”
“You just know him.”
“Yep.”
“You just know a guy who works at a mental hospital?” Julian looked out the window, knowing that he sounded petulant. But his gut told him that this guy they were going to see, who was going to help them with Xander, was Siobhan’s old fling, and he just didn’t like it.
“Yes,” Siobhan repeated. “I meet a lot of people in my line of work. And I met Grayson several years ago on case. We’ve helped each other out a few times.”
“Helped each other out.”
Siobhan just shook her head, but Kean piped up from the backseat. “They didn’t date seriously, Julian. Take a breath.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Julian muttered, even though it definitely was. “I just don’t know what this change in the plan is.”
“Sure you do,” Siobhan told him, stopping at a red light. “We’re having Xander committed against his will by proving that he’s dangerous to the citizenry. He hasn’t committed a serious crime yet, but I know that Grayson will understand and trust me when I tell him he’s a danger. Especially given that he attacked and threatened to kill me. Xander needs help. He’s not mentally sound. This way he’s detained, Melanie is safe, and maybe he even gets help. Win, win, win.”
“Win, win, win,” Julian repeated. “Why didn’t you think of this before?”
“Because I wasn’t really thinking of him as mentally ill until I saw him and talked to him,” Siobhan said, glancing in her rearview mirror at the gagged man behind her. “I was thinking of him as a criminal. Which he obviously is. But sometimes there are bigger issues at hand than bad character. So we’ll have done our job—for everyone.”
From the back, Kean chuckled. “Siobhan MacFaddan to the rescue.”
Julian knew he was being unreasonable as he glared out the window. It wasn’t his true feelings. Now that Xander was conscious again, he kept getting moments of connection to the man’s mind, and his angst and petulance and anger kept interfering with Julian’s own mindset. He didn’t love the thought of Siobhan with another man, nor did he love the idea of that man now helping with their case. But he would normally have been more reasonable, dismissing those thoughts as silly and childish.
But his head was all over the place, and he was worried that it would always be this way for him. Was he going to always have this channel open between him and the terrible people that he saw in his visions? How was he ever going to be able to trust his own feelings and instincts again, never knowing if someone else’s thoughts were invading his own?
“You okay?” Siobhan asked, looking over at him as she drove.
He nodded. “Yeah. Just sore and still…” He gestured behind him, motioning to his own head. “Affected.”
“We need to talk to Ophelia,” she decided, looking ahead again as she took a U-turn and pulled into the parking lot of a mental hospital that Julian hadn’t even known existed on the northern side of Boston. “You’re going to have to start training with her to learn how to better control your gift. She’s spent a lifetime learning, and while she can’t stop a vision from coming on or change the vision, she is much more capable of keeping her psychic power in its appropriate box, tucked away from her other…feelings and thoughts.”
Julian nodded again, but didn’t say much else as she parked the car. His thoughts drifted back to the vision he’d had earlier that day—the beautiful one where his golden dragon had come to him and flown him to the tops of the trees where they had looked
out over the ocean together. Those were the kinds of visions that he wanted to keep having, if he had to have any. He found himself wishing that the dragon would come to him again now and soothe his mind from the dark thoughts that kept pricking at him like a thousand needles against his skin. He wanted to escape, to fly, to have something beautiful and peaceful that was just his.
“Are you coming?”
The dragon faded from his mind, and he looked at Siobhan, immediately feeling that strong connection that he’d felt to her earlier while they were still in his office. All his lingering angst toward her vanished, and he wanted to pull her into his arms again and just hold her and touch her and hear every thought she’d ever had, listen to every emotion she’d ever felt, and fall into every plan she had for her future.
The emotion punched him in the gut, taking his breath away, and again, all he could do was nod.
All four of them got out the car, Kean keeping a strong hold on Xander as Siobhan removed the gag from his mouth. “You’re not going to like this,” Siobhan told the man. “But the other option is for me to kill you. So suck it up, buttercup.”
Xander spit in her face and launched into a string of expletives so vile that even the unshakeable Siobhan seemed taken aback by the vitriol spewing from the balding man.
“Come on,” Kean told her, nudging her toward the hospital entrance. “There’s Grayson, waiting.”
Siobhan walked ahead of them toward Grayson, while Kean and Julian walked on either side of Xander, keeping their firm hold on him even as he struggled and swore and spat and hissed. Touching Xander made it that much more difficult for Julian to keep his thoughts separate from Xander’s, and as they walked, he reached for his dragon vision again, the golden creature floating into his mind like a peaceful, soothing balm that helped to hold the anger at bay.
“Grayson, hi,” Siobhan said, giving the man a light hug as he met her outside the hospital. “This is such a huge favor. Thank you. This guy is Xander Blanchard, although he’s been going by a different name. That’s his given name though. I have intel—rock solid intel—that he plans to commit murder.”
Eyebrows lifting, Grayson turned his attention to Xander and unwittingly gave Julian a chance to look the man over. He was older, perhaps in his late forties, and he had salt-and-pepper hair that became truly gray around his temples. His face was lightly weathered, but handsome by what Julian would assume were most people’s standards. Grayson was broad chested and well dressed, and his light green eyes drew immediate attention as they calmly surveyed a situation.
In other words, he looked like a really nice guy who was doing them a favor.
Julian hated that about him.
“Murder,” Grayson repeated, eying Xander as he continued to struggle. “Looks like he got hit in the head.”
“Yeah. Self-defense when he threatened to murder me and attacked me,” Siobhan said. “Look, I can’t give you concrete evidence that you can use in court to fulfill the ‘dangerous to the citizenry’ component for involuntary commitment, but I’m telling you that he’s dangerous to society. To this one particular woman. And to me. What can you do for me?”
They all stood there as Xander let out another string of curses, repeating his words over and over again as he threatened all of their lives and promised to bring down hail and brimstone on all of them. It seemed clear to Julian that the man was mentally disturbed, but he didn’t know the rules, and involuntary commitment in a free society was a tricky thing. He watched Grayson’s face carefully as he considered.
“I’m not doubting you,” Grayson told her. “I’m sure he’s a danger, and I’m sure he’s got some serious imbalances. But I have to cover my own ass here.”
“I completely understand.”
“I can put him on a forty-eight-hour hold and do some research,” Grayson offered. “But I can’t promise you that we can keep him longer than that.”
Siobhan smiled up at the man. “That’s a start. Thank you.”
Reaching out, Grayson touched her arm. “You know I’ll always do what I can for you. Give me a minute, okay?”
He disappeared into the hospital and returned a few moments later with three large male attendants who walked over to Xander and took him from Julian and Kean while Xander fought against them, flailing his arms out, twisting his body away from them, and spewing verbal venom. They dragged him into the hospital as Grayson watched with the rest of them, and the moment that Xander disappeared behind the glass doors, Julian felt an easing of his spirit. He felt his normal, reasonable self return, doing away with the edgy, easily angered version of himself he had been living with for the past hour.
“Thank you,” Siobhan was saying again to Grayson. “This is huge. We’re going to actually get some sleep tonight, knowing that he’s in here. Can I get in touch with you tomorrow for an update on both sides?”
Grayson smiled at her. “Looking forward to it. I have to follow up with the attendants in there—everything needs to be by the book on this one.” He reached out and hugged her again. “But it was nice to see you. Until tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Siobhan agreed, patting his back before stepping back from his arms. “Thanks.”
“And Kean,” Grayson said, nodding to the man beside Julian. “Good to see you too. Siobhan, I’ll call you.”
And just like that, he was gone, following the attendants inside to deal with the man who was deeply embedded in Julian’s head.
For a moment, Siobhan, Julian, and Kean stood there in the parking lot, all looking at each other, hardly able to believe that, at least for the moment, the case they had been so completely invested in for almost a week was suddenly under control. And no one had gotten hurt, except for Julian’s injury. They had done their job.
There was suddenly no reason for them to be spending all of their time together, and Julian found himself looking at Siobhan, wondering where in the world they stood and where they were supposed to go from here, without a psychotic killer looming over them.
What else was their connection built on?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Siobhan
“Here we are,” Siobhan said, opening the door to her apartment and stepping back to let him walk in first. “Don’t trip over the treadmill. It’s new and I haven’t found a good place for it yet, so it’s right in the middle of the—yeah, right there.”
In the relative darkness, he’d almost run right into the enormous treadmill that she’d recently stashed at her ground-floor apartment and had to step back, almost bumping into her right behind him. “Do you have lights in here?” he asked, looking around in the relative darkness, the setting sun providing almost no natural light through the windows.
Siobhan flipped them on. “Of course I do. But…there’s a lot I don’t have. So, I would say make yourself comfortable, but…that’s not really much of a possibility. There’s the couch.” She pointed toward the large, overstuffed sofa that she had gotten at a yard sale and had re-covered. “That’s actually a couch and a kitchen table, because when I’m home, that’s where I eat all my meals.”
He chuckled, walking in and sitting down. “No harm in that.”
“Yeah, until you drop linguini between the cushions,” Siobhan said, reaching back and undoing the hair tie that had been keeping her hair pulled back from her face all day in its messy bun. “Listen, poke around, do whatever. Check the fridge for beer. I’m not shy, so open drawers—whatever floats your boat. I need to shower though. And change. Then we can figure out dinner.”
“Or I could help you figure out the shower.”
She smiled, lifting an eyebrow. “Nice. But…slow your roll. The night is young and I have dirt and sweat to scrub off my skin before I can even think about being sexy.”
“You’re always sexy. It’s effortless,” he told her, looking her up and down. “It drives me crazy actually.”
Siobhan actually flushed, her stomach fluttering. She was still just in her overalls and tank top, and she knew
she was a mess after the long day. But he was looking at her like he was hungrier for her than he was for anything else. She wanted him. She wanted to pick back up where they had left off earlier that day and feel all those incredible sensations all over again. He had hung tough with her throughout the entire afternoon, rolling with the car chase and the street fight and the involuntary commitment like a total champ. They both deserved a night of fun.
But she wasn’t ready yet. She needed some time to think about the fact that their case was basically over now. She was confident that Grayson would discover that Xander was completely insane during the forty-eight hours that he had him under watch, and that the doctors there would begin a much-needed treatment program that, hopefully, would help heal whatever damage Xander was dealing with. And in the meantime, Melanie was safe.
They had accomplished their goal together, she and Julian. What else was there to tie them together now? He might continue to have visions, but was he going to come to her each time? Were they going to become business partners, essentially, stopping crimes before they happened? Was that what she wanted?
Or if he didn’t have visions, were they going to still spend time together, and if so, what did that mean? Did he want to be her boyfriend? Did she want him to want to be her boyfriend?
Was it possible that she had been wrong when she decided that there was no way he could be her soulmate?
Or was she just so eager to start a life with someone that she was willing to assign the title of soulmate to the first person who was attracted to her?
She didn’t have the answers to any of those questions, and until she did, she couldn’t sleep with him. Earlier that day, passion had gotten the better of them, and though she had been disappointed in the interruption at the time, she was glad for it now, because she didn’t know what it would have done to her if they had made love without her being more certain about how he fit into her life.
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