by Misty Dietz
He was the only one she couldn’t bring herself to be outright awful to. How irritating.
“The aloha spirit withers when in range of my shrewish shadow, Kai. Now, out—all of you. I don’t need any of you here for this part.” Especially if she passed out afterwards. Or worse, if she failed mid-exorcism and the rootless demon chose one of her team members as its new host. It was unlikely, yes, because a host needed to be morally vulnerable for the spirit to take root there, but she still wasn’t about to risk her people in case they were having an off day.
“Why don’t you at least change clothes first?” Jade suggested. “I’m sure you feel awful in that wet number.”
Indeed. But her private quarters were fourteen stairs away, and just the thought of getting there was exhausting. “Last I checked, I’m the boss. Everyone go get some coffee or something. When you come back, refill your holy water. Keep your rosaries, crucifixes, and salt close at hand at all times. And watch each others’ backs,” she barked.
“Text me if you need anything.” Konani’s caring eyes felt like sledgehammers to Katherine’s floundering façade of strength.
“I don’t need anything. Now get out of here, all of you, dammit.” Hopefully they’d stay away long enough to ensure their safety.
Konani grabbed her purse from behind the golden bar with its glowing nude silhouettes, then ran to catch up with Stark, Maddox, and Kaikoa as they walked into the bright sunshine on the club’s main terrace. Katherine’s shoulders sank as she stared at the writhing mass of possessions in the Devil’s Trap—a solid dozen of them—unable to suppress her desperation any longer. She felt more than heard Jade take a step toward her. “Don’t. Please, Jade. I hate that you think my directives don’t apply to you.” She dared not look back at the woman, the only living blood relative she had. Though six generations had lived and died between them, with Katherine’s Guardian agelessness, they looked like contemporaries.
Three years ago when she lost the baby, she and Ari didn’t know how to be a couple anymore. He left in order to find Jade—so he said—and brought her from New Orleans to Waikiki.
Jade sighed. “Well, I hate that you think I don’t know you care way more than you let on. I hate that you carry this burden alone. And I hate that you don’t love me enough to let me in,” she finished quietly.
Katherine’s eyes closed, her lips parting in silent pain, but she summoned a breezy smirk before she turned around. “Now who’s being dramatic? Go take a break, okay? I’ll be fine.”
“Listen. I met a psychologist who specializes in Electra Complex—”
Katherine gritted her teeth and willed her breath to slow. “I’m sorry, what language are you speaking? Because it sounds a lot like bullshit.” She turned to walk toward the Devil’s Trap, finally ready to start dealing with these evil shits.
Jade’s heels clicked rapidly toward her. “Daddy issues are nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not your fault.”
Katherine swung around to face her. “You really want to go there after our last smack down about this?”
“I won’t abandon you, Kat. Not everyone is like that. I’ll prove it to you if it takes my whole life.” Jade’s warm green eyes were so earnest. So…loving.
How, and more importantly, why?
A dark corner of Katherine’s soul shivered and pulled the inky blanket tighter around her. How she hated when people ripped the scabs off. You’d think living with Jade in her face for the past few years, she’d have developed scar tissue by now, but somehow the free-spirited, good-hearted woman could shine light into the tiniest of cracks.
One of these times Katherine was bound to implode.
One of these days Jade would finally realize that her four-times removed great-aunt was so grievously flawed she was past redemption.
And then, like Katherine’s parents, her sister…even Ari…
Jade would leave, too.
An hour later, on wobbly hands and knees, Katherine shook her head and groaned as quietly as possible. Her team had probably returned to the club by now. More than likely they were hovering in the reception area beyond the second tier of tables. Her stomach pitched wildly again, bringing tears to her eyes, which she blinked away rapidly.
One more exorcism and all the humans they’d quarantined in the Devil’s Trap would be free of invading malevolence.
Just one more.
The inside of her body felt coated in sludge. Black, oily, and unclean—with slithering worms piling up in her arms, legs, and chest. She’d tried meditation to rise above it, to initiate the natural rejuvenation that all Purifier Guardians received, but she’d only fallen asleep. The rest hadn’t even helped. Nor had Nani’s special energy drink.
I’m failing.
For her, it was the worst F word of all. A word that had haunted her since that horrific day on the beach. She was eleven, her sister Mary, only nine. Innocent and needing protection.
Protection Katherine had failed to provide.
Lying down on the hardwood floor, two feet away from the last possessed female, Katherine discovered she wasn’t ready to die. Wasn’t ready for what came after failing her duty. For better or worse, this Purgatory was her choice, and she’d make it again and again, though her motives for her choice made her a coward. She chose to help humanity not because she wanted to, but because she was honest-to-God, knees-knocking petrified of suffering in Hell for eternity.
Michael, why won’t you help me?
You’re perfectly capable of helping yourself, Guardian, yet you choose not to, came the echoing reply. If Archangels offer their aid, that is the beginning of the End Times. You know this.
Yeah, well screw him and his by-the-book anal retentiveness.
A blast of air ripped through the room, so cold it made her damp pantsuit freeze to her skin. Katherine’s teeth clacked together. She managed to roll to her knees, panting to suppress the dry heaves. Don’t give him the satisfaction.
I find no joy in your misery, Guardian.
“Could have fooled me. Just…” Leave me alone. Even her voice inside her head didn’t sound like her any more. That would be alarming if her heart had the reserves to push her blood faster through her veins.
But, nope.
The possessed woman stopped crying and pulling her hair to begin laughing and jeering at Katherine. After the worst of the nausea had passed, Katherine wiped her mouth and slowly rose to her feet, looking at the bloodshot eyes of the still-taunting, possessed woman. “Keep that up and you’re going to find your lip gloss replaced with a glue stick, demon.”
Katherine turned toward the bar and reception area as the evil spirit inside the woman erupted in rage. The screaming set Katherine’s teeth on edge, but she forced herself not to cover her ears. As expected, she found Jade, Stark, Kai, Maddox, and Konani loitering near the reception desk. They scrambled to make themselves look busy. Katherine plucked an upside-down menu from Konani’s fingers, replacing it right side up before opening the club’s front door. “I’ll be back in a few hours.” De-demonizing the last one would have to wait. “If you burn the place down, make sure it looks like an accident for insurance purposes.”
“Pretty hard to do that when the place is a fuckin’ wet spa already,” Stark muttered.
Katherine smiled inwardly, pleased with how much his confidence had grown in the two years since she’d exorcised a particularly robust demon from him, then forced him through heroin addiction treatment. None of it had been pretty, but they’d both somehow managed to survive. “I think you bitch more than I do, Stark. Impressive.”
She saw pleasure flash in his eyes before he turned away to grab a chair for her. “Sit your ass down before you embarrass yourself,” he grumbled.
She knocked the chair over on her way to the door.
“Wait, where are you headed?” Jade called.
Katherine paused with one hand on the door, staring at all five of their serious faces, deciding if she wanted them to know. Telling them would be an
admission of her exhaustion. Unfortunately, the need to be accessible to them won out over her damned pride. “Home.”
In thirty minutes she was there. Normally, she’d demolecularize and stream home, but that was out of the question in her gutless state. The property was in Kailua, on the windward, lush side of Oahu. Her fortress. Five thousand square feet of privacy with both a sugar sand beach and rocky outcroppings, mere steps away from her tricked-out lanai.
She turned off the car and shucked her six hundred dollar shoes, leaving them on the bench in the front entry. A soak in the hot tub would feel glorious, but she’d probably pass out and drown. She stripped off her abused pantsuit, dumped it into the trash, and took a cool shower to clear her mind. It only made her more edgy.
Ari was coming.
She refused to look at her reflection in the mirror as she dried off, and then walked circles in her dressing room. She slipped into a breezy cotton shift and tried to make herself sit still.
Ari was coming.
She could feel his unique energy in the subtle pressure shifts of the salty sea air that was his Guardian element.
Ari.
Fatigue sat like two boulders yoked across her shoulders, but her pulse wouldn’t listen. Wouldn’t let her mind relax and seek the rejuvenation that was critical to her existence. She arranged her still-damp hair into the low chignon that Ari had always called her proper librarian bun.
Damn him for all the memories.
She paced in front of the windows. Breathe.
Her hands balled into fists as she ran down the stairs and rushed out into the mid-afternoon sunshine. Her bare feet sank into the warm sand as she made her way toward the surf. Her heart revved and sweat pooled between her breasts. Panic—fresh, hot, breathless—flared to life, and she froze, as she always did, ten feet from the water’s edge. The waves retreated, barrel-rolling tiny shells and strands of seaweed across the sand. She exhaled with a shudder.
The water element was her gift, yet her fear of the ocean—feeling the water rise up her ankles to drag her down and swallow her whole—nearly crippled her.
Such a paradox.
She stepped back five more steps and began to collect seashells, their smooth surfaces normally so soothing against her fingertips.
Now, each one gathered meant she was that much closer to facing Ari.
She sang an old Hawaiian song under her breath as the wind picked up, stirring loosened hairs from her bun as though pulled by Ari’s fingers. He’d always taken her hair down, pin by pin. He said he loved to undo her.
Oh, how he’d succeeded.
Her shadow lengthened on the sand. She looked out over the ocean as dark, moody clouds overtook the sun. Ari? Her heart skidded to a halt, then jackknifed in her chest, restarting at an impossible pace. An unnatural wind drove the waves higher, crashing violently against the sand, forcing her to retreat until she stumbled in the sand ten steps from her lanai. This abrupt weather change had to be him.
She pushed back up to her feet and swung around to look out over the ocean.
I hate him for always making me feel. I hate…
Him.
Right there, standing before her on the wet sand. Still so rawly masculine. Always aware of his ridiculous appeal. Always smirking, though this time there was an edge of cruelty to the curve of his lips. White shirt, bare feet, and tan trousers rolled up and wet around the ankles, as though he hadn’t just come from the frozen Himalayas.
He never felt the cold. Or self-loathing.
Must be nice to be born a Viking.
“Katherine.”
Her name fell deep and liquid from his lips, disorienting her. He stepped forward, crushing her in his arms, swinging her around. She grew dizzy from the motion and his sensual laughter. Memories poured through her. She let them come. Lost herself in the wonder, joy, and eventual heartbreak of them, knowing she was a fool for doing so.
Energy shot into her sinews, cleared the pathways in her mind, balanced her tummy, and heavens, she felt better than she had in ages.
Too bad they were so wretchedly unsuited.
She pushed out of his arms, conjuring a geyser of cold water to blast him in the back of the head. He shook the water out of his eyes, and his sun-streaked blonde hair—longer than she’d ever seen it—flung water droplets every which way as he laughed in that captivating way.
Pure Ari.
His laughter was as intoxicating as his kiss.
She turned abruptly and forced herself not to dash into the house. He grabbed her hand, swinging her back around, the wild blue of his eyes clouding abruptly. “No more walls, Kat.”
Chapter 2
Ari’s euphoria bled away as he watched the storm break across Kat’s face. Her dark curling lashes now framed washed-out irises, a feeble reminder of the fierce blue-green she’d been born with, the snapping intelligence in them a shadow of their former glory.
And her waterworks—which normally landed him on his ass—were now just a squirt to the back of his head…Damn.
He swallowed back his shock. She was truly ill. He rubbed his thumb across the underside of her wrist, feeling her pulse jump and skitter. His initial elation at seeing her again warred with his simmering anger at her past rejections as well as a new, unwelcome uneasiness about her wellbeing. “Kat—”
“No!” She jerked her arm from his grasp. “No more walls, you say? That’s rich coming from someone who was so emotionally unavailable you couldn’t even stand to be on the same island with me after I f-failed you.”
He blinked, taking a moment to process the word she’d used. Even she looked startled by her outburst. “Whoa. The only failure we’re both guilty of is a colossal breakdown in communication.”
She held up a hand. “Let’s not reanalyze why we don’t belong, okay? Jade obviously grossly overstated whatever trouble she called you to tattle about. I’m fine and dandy. Just like I’ve been for the last three years…”
Without you.
The unspoken words hung between them, as daunting as any enemy fortifications he’d ever faced.
“You’ve never been a decent liar. Your eyes show your struggle, and I feel it in your body. It’s long past time we mended our discord.” He took a slow step toward her, maintaining eye contact, pushing through the ether that stretched between them to seek out her heart rhythm. When he matched her heart’s cadence, the thrill of their intimate connection surged through his blood. The white grains of sand at his feet grew luminous.
Marvelous.
Hues, feelings…her. It was all entwined, coming back in a grand rush that nearly made him throw back his head and howl to the Valkyries like the crazed Viking berserkers from his ancient raiding party. He’d forgotten how a male Guardian’s senses stormed to life when in sync with his compar.
He slowed his breathing. She remained rooted to the spot as he threaded the fingers of one hand through her chilled ones to increase their skin-to-skin contact. The need to comfort her, to soothe the furious race of her heart and bolster her dangerously low energy levels quenched his anger. Softened his bruised pride. His other hand feathered against her cheek, once so soft and full. Now it was sunken, the skin pale and dry. Touching her, impressions cascaded through him—stabbing pain, echoing darkness, crushing hopelessness. He frowned, clasping her hand tighter, but she shook her head and forcefully broke their connection, wiping her cheeks.
“Stay out of my head! You have no right!”
“Kat, my God…” Fragments of his own grief drifted through him like murky shadows in fjord caverns. He’d been patient these past three years, giving her time to realize that his actions—going away to find her only living blood relative—was his way of helping her deal with the loss of their baby.
His desperate way to resurrect her love for him.
But she’d been so wrathful when he’d returned with Jade. For two years after that, nothing he’d said or done could move the bedrock in her mind. A year ago, he’d had enough of her rejection
. Fighting the desire to be with her was easier than facing her continued scorn. So he’d stayed away. Buried himself in his Guardian Purifier duties.
On grim days when he cursed his lot, he wondered if she was relieved to be rid of him. Though conception had occurred between a Guardian and a human a few dozen times, his and Kat’s pregnancy had been the first between two Guardians.
Perhaps their miscarriage and Ari’s subsequent ‘abandonment’ was her convenient excuse to push him away.
That uncharitable thought struck soon after her first rejection, and then he was ashamed… Until the inevitable darkness would swallow him up again, and he’d lie down and make his bed with those ugly conclusions.
He wanted their miracle baby more than he ever wanted anything in the thousand plus years he’d lived. If only they’d worked through their anguish together. “I won’t allow you to suffer another day.”
She flushed briefly before resuming that rigid aloofness that was her hallmark. “You will gladly offer your body in service to my weakness, is that right? It’s your duty, right?” Her lips curled coldly. “I’d rather purchase new batteries for my hand-held, so you can go stuff your damn soul mate obligation. And my name is Katherine.”
He stepped closer, watching more color rise in her cheeks with inordinate satisfaction. He’d missed every reserved, bitchy edge of her because he knew better than anyone what was down beneath it all. Still waters ran deep. And those passionate undercurrents belonged to him whether it pissed her off or not. “No vibrator in this lifetime or the next will satisfy you the way I can.”
“Get over yourself, Viking. And for Heaven’s sake, stop crowding me. I don’t have the energy to pretend I like you.”
“I’m not sure I like you either, so we’re even. However if you expire, you’ll no longer be able to boss people around. I know you’d hate that,” he drawled.
