Forever

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “Ya think?” she bit out.

  It made the right corner of his mouth curl into a smile that reached into the stunning blue of his eyes.

  “Like any society we have our villainous element. If anyone can appreciate that it would be a psychiatrist who tries to ease the souls of officers who have become jaded and bitter when they see just how horrible humanity can get. But lawful Bodywalkers always ask for permission to reside in the bodies of their prospective hosts. The day Jackson’s life was being stripped from him, as you shed tears for him, he was in the Ether, meeting me, accepting my proposal of a newer, longer lifetime and a position in it that will influence the well-being of thousands of people, be they original humans with a single soul or those of us who have been given another chance at life. You were witness to all that led to that. The battle. My death. Your grief. And we could not let any of you go out in the world with knowledge of us once againag., putting us at risk, so your minds were nudged into believing it was nothing more than a dream.”

  And she knew the very dream he was talking about because it had been the realest thing she’d ever experienced in her sleeping life. She had seen him go flying through the air, crashing back first into a windshield and then … dying.

  She was shaking her head in negation even as his thumb came up to stroke the width of her bottom lip, sending more of that electrical awareness through some very private nerves inside her. If she accepted what he said, accepted what her very own eyes had just seen, then maybe his touch truly was full of magic. The idea made her shiver, warring with her still-healthy fear of the man touching her.

  “I will not hurt you,” he promised her in deep, gentling tones. “You mean too much to us, Marissa.”

  The sentence took her breath away. And it wasn’t because his use of alternating personal pronouns was disturbing to her. Well, it was, but that wasn’t what she was reacting to. Was he implying that he had feelings for her? Was she excited by that insane thought? There were thousands of reasons why she shouldn’t entertain or encourage something like that, but what she had witnessed him do to that other person was really all she should need.

  So why was her heart leaping with excitement?

  “I want to tell you you’re insane. I want to say you are delusional and hallucinatory. Hell, I want to say that about myself. But I know this isn’t a dream. I know what you are capable of is not normal or human.”

  “On the contrary,” he argued quietly. “It was the most basic act of humanity you will ever see. A being with good morals and conscience eradicating one without. He was from a sect of Bodywalkers called the Templars. Somehow he must have discovered that we are Menes, the leader of the Politic Bodywalkers. The lawful ones. He was an assassin bent on destroying me, hoping that my death will give them an advantage in the war we fight against his kind. If he had succeeded in killing me Jackson would be dead, and I would have returned to the Ether, trapped there for another hundred years.”

  “Why a hundred years?” she asked. Of all the things she should be asking … questioning … it seemed to be the safest choice.

  “It is as the gods decide, Marissa. We are powerful as a species, but we are not omnipotent. Far from it. I am not a god,” he said as he gently brushed her hair back with his fingertips. How, she wondered, could a touch be so comforting and disturbing at the same time?

  “I don’t want to believe anything you are saying,” she confessed to him fiercely. “I want to be a thousand miles from here and I want to wish I had never laid eyes on you, Jackson Waverly … or … Menes. Whoever you are! I just want you to let me go. Are you going to let me go? Now that I know this incredible secret, are you going to let me go or … or do you have to d-do something to make me not remember any of this?”

  “It cannot be done twice, Marissa. The human brain is too fragile to be manipulated in such ways too often. And yes, I would set you free and I would trust you to keep your countenance.”

  “I sense there’s a ‘but’ coming,” she said wryly.

  “But,” he obliged her, “I believe you would not be saf in the first place. ie unless you were under my protection from now on, Marissa. The creature that escaped has seen you. He will report to his masters about this battle, and part of that report will include you. They will assume you”—he paused with difficulty—“are of importance to me. If I let you go, they would seek you out and try to find a way to use you against me. Whether as a bargaining chip or as a corpse meant to shatter my calm, they will see to it your value is used for their benefit.”

  “So you mean just because I was standing next to you I’m going to be a target for the rest of my life?” She sounded angry now, and maybe that was a good thing. She desperately wanted to feel something else other than fear or … or …

  “No. Because I protected you. Because I reacted emotionally to you possibly being harmed. That is how they know you mean something to me.” He was touching her lips again, looking at them as though he wanted to use her for his benefit. And the thought made frissons of heat slip through every last vessel in her body. “But I will not let anyone hurt you, Marissa. I promise you that.”

  “You can’t. You can’t promise me anything of the kind! You can’t be there every second of every day! And I don’t want you there every second of every day!” She tried to pull away, to back off from him, but he followed her until she once again found herself trapped between him and the wall. “Please,” she breathed, not knowing what else she could say or do. She was completely at a loss as to how to handle this situation. All of her training and professional experience meant absolutely nothing because things like this did not happen. All her training and education told her was that she must have gone right off the deep end. She must have suffered a psychotic break along with the full boat of hallucinations and denial because it felt pretty damn real and she felt pretty damn sane.

  “Please? Are you begging me to protect you or are you begging me to watch you die?”

  “Stop. Stop saying things like that! Do you have any idea how crazy this all sounds? Jackson, you aren’t an Egyptian pharaoh! You aren’t a body snatcher o-or anything else. You’re a cop. A really good cop with a really good heart and you have what it takes to go really far in the department i-if you would just …”

  “Is that how you think of me?” he asked, sounding genuinely pleased to hear her assessment of him. “Isn’t that funny? I always thought you didn’t think I could cut a lifetime career in the SPD.” A short, rough laugh popped out of him. “How strange. All I’ve ever wanted was your good opinion, Marissa. And now here you are giving it to me … but only so long as I deny the truth of who and what I am. Only so long as I allow you to deny it because you aren’t equipped to deal with the understanding that there are more things in heaven and earth than you have ever conceived of before this. You approve of me only if I am the sum of your ideas of who I am or should be.”

  Marissa’s breath caught in the back of her throat at the backhanded accusation that she was being close-minded. He couldn’t have known that it was the one thing she couldn’t bear feeling. The idea that she was being intolerant of another human being …

  Human being.

  She didn’t know why she reached out to touch him. All she had tried to do since that horrible fight had ended was try to get away, pu autocraticag.sh away, repel and resist. But now she reached to touch him, her fingertip resting shakily against his chest and then, a moment later her palm followed to press against his bare skin.

  There. There it was. A powerful, steady heartbeat.

  “A single heart … two souls. Human in almost every way, Marissa. Human and more,” he said as though he could read her mind. Hell, for all she knew he was reading her mind. Unable to check the impulse, she let her eyes drop down the length of his torso. Naked as he was he was completely exposed to any inspection she wanted to subject him to. But the minute she laid eyes on his sex she whipped her gaze back up. Oh yeah, he sure seemed human to her. And he was definitely more!<
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  “I want to believe you. I-I have to believe you because if I don’t it means I’ve lost hold of reality. And at the same time everything inside me is screaming at me to push it all away. To shut it all away, because if I accept this craziness …”

  “Then you must be crazy yourself. And who wants to admit that to themselves? Who wants to face the prospect that they might not be as in control of their own lives as they thought they were.”

  “Yes,” she said softly. She looked back into his eyes, the sea-foam color of them so clear and sharp. And that was when she realized that he was so obviously more than Jackson Waverly had been. Jackson had been handsome and vital, dedicated and loyal, devoted to his work and those whose lives he held in his hands every day. She had always considered him to be intelligent, but not in an existential way. The man standing before her was everything Jackson was … and so much more. After Chico’s death he had been growing increasingly less patient, his bitterness taking its toll on him. But she realized that for the pas he scrubbed a

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jackson was looking down into her face when he saw understanding blossom into her features and eyes like a drop of ink released into crystal clear water. It was understanding and, more important, it was acceptance. He knew that because her other hand lifted to touch his arm at the biceps, and for the first time she wasn’t trying to press her body and everything else away from him. He knew she wasn’t going to completely grasp all of what he had told her for some time, but at least she was now receptive to the information.

  As for himself, he was more than a little confused by his own actions. True, he was only just learning about the power that Menes commanded, and of course there had been no way of preventing her from witnessing him in action. They both would have been dead if he had not shown his hand. But what baffled Jackson was why Menes had gone out of his way to make a show of protecting Marissa. He had said himself that those actions were like putting a bull’s-eye on her.

  So why had he made it so obvious? And it had been Menes in control at that moment. Jackson’s first lesson in being host to a being as powerful as Menes was to learn when to step back and let the expert take charge of the moment, just as Menes did when in an element only Jackson could manage because of familiarity and experience. It was the more mundane things in life that found them more perfectly blended, and Menes assured him that would only grow and spread over time as they both continued to experience life and each other. But in spite of this Blending being supposedly finished, Jackson felt there was still much of Menes’s mind that he simply could not access, whereas he felt the reverse was much less true. It was a strange thing, this feeling like he couldn’t trust himself entirely.

  Stranger still was the way he felt being near Marissa like this. It was as though all of his senses had gone into hyperdrive. The smell of her, something musky yet sweet at the same time, had him wanting to inhale deeper and deeper with each successive breath. He even lowered his head, trying to surreptitiously smell the floral shampoo she used in her hair. What was more, he couldn’t keep himself from touching her, his hands still cradling her face, his thumb running obsessively over her lips. She had the fullest mouth he’d seen on a woman, other than Angelina Jolie. It begged for exploration, for experimentation. His mouth began to ache with the need to kiss her, his heart hurting in his chest as he resisted the urge. She was disturbed enough without having to fight off his advances.

  Let go, he told himself fiercely. Just let her go!

  “Marissa,” he said breathily. I’m going to kiss you. “I think it would be wise to find me some clothes.”

  “Oh,” she said softly, seemingly caught up in the same craving that he was.

  She wants it, into her facem“If you Jackson. Just kiss her. Kiss that delectable mouth and taste her.

  Jackson stepped back, forcing himself to let go of her. He turned his back to her, closing his eyes as he clenched a fist against the desire riding him hard. It wouldn’t be the first time he got hard from craving Dr. Marissa Anderson. But it would damn well be the first time she would know about it because, being completely nude, he couldn’t conceal the result of his lust for her.

  “Go. Out of these woods and to my car. I have a gym bag in the trunk,” he said, keeping his back to her as he pressed hard palms against the wall, trying to erase the feel of her from his hands. “No one should stop you, but if they do just tell them the bag has supplies for taking care of Sargent.”

  “O-oh okay,” she said. “I … I thought you said I wouldn’t be safe without you,” she hedged nervously. He glanced over his shoulder at her, turning only just as far as he dared.

  “It will take time for the Gargoyle to make it back to his masters. Just do this quickly. I’ll follow behind you and meet you in the woods once you’re clear of witnesses.”

  He was so grateful when she nodded in agreement and moved toward the cave entrance that he thought he could cry with relief. He watched her push through the brush guarding the place, and then she was gone. He exhaled hard, finally turning around and leaning his back against the cold surface of the wall.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded of himself.

  Being human, Menes, his new conscience answered. There is nothing shameful about craving a thing of beauty.

  “I thought you were a one-woman man,” he muttered petulantly.

  My woman … There was a distinct hesitation and Jackson felt as though there was an omission taking place … My woman is not here as yet. When she arrives you will know it without a doubt. You will feel the power of what I feel. In the meantime … there is no betrayal if you have desires counter to my own.

  But Jackson found the idea settling ill within him. He wasn’t about to make advances toward Marissa when he knew there would be no future in it. Marissa Anderson was a forever kind of woman. She didn’t strike him as the type to have casual sex just for the sake of scratching an itch. She would be looking for more. More than what he could give her.

  No. Marissa was off-limits. And the sooner he reconciled himself to that the better off he would be.

  And on that thought he left the cave, following behind her.

  Marissa broke free of the tree line and hurried directly for Jackson’s vehicle. Luckily she had seen him use the concealed trunk release earlier when he had gotten water for Sargent. She reached into the car and engaged the release. When she straightened and turned, it was all she could do not to scream when she nearly ran into Captain Avery Landon, Jackson’s boss.

  “What are you doing? You’re not allowed in the front of an official vehicle, Dr. Anderson, without an officer. And there are weapons in the trunk.” Langdon reached back and put a hand on the trunk lid, slamming it down into place again.

  After all she had been through in the past half hour, it was the straw that broke every single ounce something else entirely. and the lof self-control she had. She rounded on the captain with a fury.

  “Of course I know there are weapons in the trunk!” she spat out. “And I also know that I don’t belong in the front of this car without permission. But did it ever occur to you, you pompous jackass, that I was sent here to retrieve something for Officer Waverly? He’s in the field with his K-9. And I know you know how dedicated he and that damn dog are. Too dedicated to take a break and fetch the supplies they need to keep hydrated and their energy up!” She reached back into the car and snapped the lock release again. “Jackson sent me for his supplies, and I damn well am going to bring them to him. Now back off and stop getting in the way of his work. Christ, you’re your own worse enemy, Captain,” she ground out at him as she pushed past him and looked into the trunk. “You’re so busy trying to tighten your control freak noose around everyone’s throat that you don’t even realize what a hindrance you are to these men and women beneath you.” She found the bag and snatched it up. She reached to slam the trunk closed, putting so much force into it that the patrol car rocked. “These are good cops, Captain Landon. If anyone wo
uld know that, it would be me. And I’m telling you what they can’t, that you need to back the fuck off!”

  With that she pushed her way past the flabbergasted captain and stepped toward the woods. Only there was a phalanx of officers standing in her way, the group having gathered, obviously, when they had begun to overhear her tirade. She faced them, her entire body flushing hot with embarrassment because she knew damn well how unprofessional she had been. But she would worry about the consequences of that later. She had more important worries on her mind at the moment. But just as she was about to bulldoze her way past everyone, one of the officers began to clap his hands together. Like wildfire it spread, until she was facing a platoon of applause. She winced, picturing in her mind exactly how furious the captain behind her would be because he was head to toe a classic narcissist who defined himself by the value of his position and his job. He would not appreciate anything that undermined that. He just wasn’t the sort to see the errors of his ways.

  Odds were, she would be fired by the end of the week.

  She pushed free of her admirers and ran for the woods. Avery Landon was a worry for another day. Right now she had to bring clothes to a naked man. As she struggled through the bracken to get deeper into the woods and farther away from potential witnesses, she suddenly heard the snapping of branches and Sargent bounded out of the brush, barking happily at her arrival. She moved quicker at the sight of him, headed in the direction he’d come from. Suddenly a hand grabbed her by the arm, pulling her to a stop. She was such a jumble of high-strung nerves that she shouted out in surprise.

  “Easy,” he soothed, reaching to take the gym bag from her tightly clutched fingers. “Is everything all right?”

  No. Nothing is all right, she thought. “It was fine. Nothing of note happened.”

  “Damn, that’s unnerving. There are weapons in that trunk.”