He sighed, walking toward the house. Unless he wanted to quit his job and find something else to do, he was going to have to go through with this. Cyrus wanted him better; he’d do his best to indicate he could be trusted. Rekkus wanted him to watch Amelia. That wouldn’t be too awful either. A beautiful woman he wasn’t to take his eyes off of? Somehow he’d manage.
Damek strode into the house. He had no clothing with him, but that wouldn’t be a problem. The Rowans would conjure something for him. They were good at that.
He rubbed his nose, the smells of Sage’s work wafting around the house. It wouldn’t knock him out—hell, once upon a time not so long ago, he’d made up similar concoctions himself. Never to knock out an entire group of humans, but similar enough that he understood the process.
The living room was empty save for some thrown together furniture. The island was set up for twelve paranormal guests and twelve human guests. A total of twenty-four. But, with Amelia, they’d now be at thirteen human guests. And now that he stayed? Did that make him the thirteenth paranormal guest? Damek knew he should leave Amelia alone. Someone should have explained that to his feet. He walked into her room. Standing by the door, he looked down at her. In rest, the wariness that surrounded her had vanished, making her seem younger, or at least less burdened.
He reached in her direction, as if through the movement of the air he could stroke her hair through his fingertips. She smiled from something happening in her dreams, and he dropped his hand. He’d never be allowed to touch her, not like that. Even if she, through some gift of fate, were interested, he would never let it happen. His hand shook, and he shoved it in his pocket. Why did he do this to himself? Why even imagine what he could not have?
This woman would remain safe, even from him. He turned and walked back into the living room. She’d have to get up for dinner. Everyone in the hotel gathered together every night in the same location to eat. The staff could do a head count, make sure no one had gone missing. Sage would have manipulated the herbs to make sure Amelia woke up, but if she didn’t, Damek would wake her.
What would she look like when she first roused? Tired and groggy, in need of a hug? Or sexy with a sultry look that said she wanted to get down to business as soon as she opened her eyes? His cock jumped, and he gritted his teeth.
The man that got to touch her would be lucky indeed.
Chapter Three
“It’s time to wake up.”
Amelia pushed toward the surface of consciousness, although she preferred the blackness and wouldn’t have minded hanging out in dreamland a bit longer. Yawning, she opened her eyes.
Damek, the boatman, stared down at her. His eyes were slits, but concern hid in their dark depths. What was he doing in her bedroom?
Thank goodness she’d gone to bed fully dressed. Or maybe that wasn’t a plus.
What would it be like to wake up next to him?
She cleared her throat. “Everything okay?”
He nodded, a smile crossing his lips. “Now it is. Took you a little while to rouse. Sage really gave you a high dosing.”
“She drugged me?”
“No.” He shrugged. “More like an aromatherapy sleep push.”
“Right.” She rubbed at her face. How awful did she look? “Why do they do that? What are they hiding?” She didn’t like being taken unaware like that. Someone like Daniel could be around, and then what would she do? She pushed all thoughts of her truly disturbed patient from her mind.
He held out his hand and she took it. With a little tug, he brought her upward. Her feet didn’t want to work and she would have stumbled, but he caught her, pulling her against him even tighter.
“You okay?”
She laughed. Her face had to be flushed from the heat infusing her cheeks. “I’m just a klutz. It’s one of my not so secret personal flaws.”
“It also doesn’t help that you’ve been knocked out. The muscles need time to know they’ve got to work again. Sit back down.”
She obeyed. He bent over and massaged her calf muscles. His hands were big and strong. At some point, he must have worked with them because the tips of his fingers were callused. They rubbed against her, and heat pooled between her thighs.
She swallowed, forcing herself to look away. He was being nice, and her body acted like he’d just proposed sex. Wow.
He stopped rubbing and looked up at her, his eyes huge. “I used to do this for my wife. She had troubles, health issues, and sometimes her muscles wouldn’t work. I wanted to cure her or at least alleviate her symptoms. Only, I never really got that right. So sometimes I’d just do this. She seemed to like it.”
Pain radiated off him in waves. She swallowed it down inside where she hid the unhappiness of others. Eventually, it would leave her body, but for a while it would be hers as much as it was his. Not that she ever discussed this. Because she wasn’t paranormal, it made her seem insane.
“You were a healer.” That much had become very clear.
“I did potions and herb work. Much like Sage and Sarka. Although, they’re really talented.”
She leaned down and grabbed his hands, stopping the massage. If she took his hands, she could take more of his pain away. The need to help him nearly overwhelmed her. “And you weren’t?”
“I was good enough. I owned a shop. People came to me for things like fixing their aches and pains. But I couldn’t fix Zoe. And when I tried, the spell got away from me. She died.”
“Oh, I see.” She nodded. He blamed himself for his wife’s death. Maybe he had been culpable. “Why aren’t you in jail?”
“She took the potion herself. Human authorities deemed it suicide. And the witch’s council said that while I should have been more careful with my work, I wasn’t responsible for the fact that she actually took it.” He rubbed his forehead. “It was my fault, even if they don’t think so.”
“You know that I’m a psychologist.”
“I do.” Damek glanced away from her. “I didn’t mean to dump this on you. In fact, I have no idea why I did.”
“Because everyone does. If they have something they need to say, they tell it to me.” She stood up. Her legs felt much better; in fact, her whole body had loosened up since he’d touched her. “Look, did you give her the potion? Tell her to take it, knowing it would hurt her?”
“No. It wasn’t ready. I told her so.” Damek’s gaze fell on the floor
Poor man. He carried so much inside of him.
“Then why would she have taken it? You said her muscles didn’t work. Was she in pain?”
“Don’t say it.” He stared at her straight on. “There’s no way she did what they said she did. It’s my fault. I lost control of things, and she died.” He slammed his hand on the wall. “End of story.”
“Yelling at me doesn’t change the past. Yelling at me doesn’t make things that have already happened go away.”
He panted, turning to look at her. “This is why I told them I shouldn’t be with you. I’m dangerous.” Damek held up his hands. “I won’t hurt you. Not that you should believe me, but I won’t.”
“I’m really not that concerned. You banged on a wall. Big-frickin-whoopdy-doo. You should see some of the things I’ve seen.”
The man in front of her was hot, smart, articulate, exhausted, and drowning in guilt. He couldn’t see up from down. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and never let go.
“We have to go to dinner.” He swung open the door and stormed through it. “Come with me. I have to keep eyes on you. There’s a threat, and while they don’t think it’s you, they don’t trust anyone right now. I’m walking to dinner, so you’re walking to dinner.”
“Right.”
She could have argued, but she knew a man about to have an emotional crisis when she saw one. For years after her parents’ de
ath, she had bitten the head off of anyone who’d looked at her funny. Then she’d gotten better at repression.
Still, she wasn’t going to interfere if the man wanted to stomp around and yell because his wife had either done something foolish and died or deliberately ingested something to kill herself.
Both scenarios were a real kick in the behind.
Walking outside, she was glad it had remained warm on the island. When she’d packed, she hadn’t taken into account that the weather on this magical island could be freezing.
He swung around again. “I’m sorry I yelled again.”
“Why don’t you just assume that I won’t fall over when I get screamed at? Have as many temper tantrums as you want to for, say, the next ten minutes and then we’ll see where we are.”
“Oh, damn it.” He laughed, a loud sound, his head thrown back toward the darkening sky. “You really say the damndest things. Do you talk that way to your patients?”
A sway in her step surprised her. Amelia didn’t really do seduction. However, Damek made her want to drop her pants and climb right on.
He needed to understand a very important distinction. “You are not my patient.” When she reached him, she grabbed onto his shirt. She’d prefer to feel his skin. The way his breath caught told her he wasn’t unaffected by her either. “I want to be something quite different than your doctor. I think you desire that, too.”
“Goddess, Amelia, I crave you. How can it only be a few hours since the boat ride? But I won’t touch you. Not like that. It would be a betrayal to Zoe’s memory. I’m sorry.”
She let go of his shirt and took a step back. A million arguments flooded her mind. Life is for the living. Zoe would never want you to spend your life celibate. Stop hiding from the world. Yet, she wouldn’t utter a word of them to him. She wouldn’t lie to Damek. How could she tell someone to let go when she never had herself?
“Okay.” The words were hard for her to say. In fact, she wanted to choke on them. “But if you change your mind, I’m interested in getting in your pants. Just so you know.”
She turned and walked in the opposite direction. Sage had brought her in the golf cart earlier, but she’d been so distracted she hadn’t really paid attention to where she was going. For all she knew, she could be heading to some kind of mermaid lagoon.
Maybe she could fall in and forget about the fact that the first guy she’d ever thrown herself at had said no. Next time she heard one of her patients whining about a guy, she would be more sympathetic.
This would be a reminder not to do it again.
Damek ran after her. “Look, I—”
She held up her hand. “Please, don’t mention it again. This whole thing has been a mistake. A big one. From moment one. I’m going to do my best to stop acting like an idiot and get back to being the steady person I’ve always managed to be.”
“Does the offer you made a few minutes ago disappear, then?”
“What?” Her head pounded.
“Do you still want me? If I change my mind.”
She threw her hands in the air. Her spine stiffened, but she ignored the sensation. Whatever was making her nervous was going to have to wait. “Of all the self-centered—”
Damek shoved her to the ground. Something whizzed by her head, the tree behind where she stood bursting open with a crack. Wood splattered downwards.
“What the hell?”
Damek’s big body covered hers. “Bullets. Someone just shot at you.”
“At me? Why on earth would someone do that? This has to be a mistake. No one has any reason whatsoever that would warrant doing something like that. Unless the people here are mad that I stowed away.”
He grimaced. “Not their style. For a small crime like yours, they’re likely to talk you to death, not shoot at you. Rekkus might tear off your head, but also no shooting.”
Another bullet whizzed by, slamming into the same tree. Whoever did this was determined, if not very accurate. Amelia screamed, and he held her down beneath his body. No one would hurt her. He wouldn’t allow it. He would somehow control this, somehow make this okay.
“Listen, I’m going to get us out of this. I’m going to get us some help and then whoever was dumb enough to wield a weapon at the Wiccan Haus is going to wish they’d never been born.”
“How are you going to do that?” Her body trembled beneath him.
“I’m not human, remember? I’m something else, something magical. I might be mostly out of practice with this stuff, but I think I can manage a little telepathic communication. It’s one of my warlock abilities. I might be able to hold open a pathway for Cyrus and me to communicate.”
He hoped. His confidence in his abilities didn’t exactly equal his grandiose boasting. But if it gave her any sort of relief, he’d gladly continue.
In the meantime, he focused his energy on communicating with someone who could help them.
Cyrus. He called into the universe, not surprised when no one answered. No way would the universe give him an easy out. Not the way things had been going lately.
Damek tried again. Cyrus.
This time he got a reply. Damek? What are you doing?
He took a deep breath and projected the images of the gunfire and being pinned to the ground with Amelia.
On our way.
“Any luck?” A bullet slammed into the ground in front of them.
“I got through.”
“This might be a stupid question, and please don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but why does this person keep missing? All of those shots and he hasn’t hit me, or you, yet.”
“It seems he’s not a very good shot.”
She groaned. “Yep.”
He’d never been so grateful for his better than human hearing. Most of the time it aggravated him to know what people said from across a room or to hear intimate moments he’d rather not know about
She laughed, a small giggle in her chest that finally made it out of her mouth. He stared down at her. Had the woman lost her mind?
“I’m sorry. I can’t seem to do anything about it except laugh. I mean, gee, I’d be dead, but the guy trying to kill me happens to be bad at handling his gun.”
“Personally, I’m thrilled about the happenstance. I have you beneath me, it’s likely that psycho with the gun is not going to hit us, and I get to act all manly showing off my magical skills.”
She rubbed her nose. “Psycho with the gun? Is that a technical term?”
“You tell me. You’re the doctor.”
“Damek.” Cyrus’s voice rang out into the evening. “We’re here. Whoever had the gun is gone. Rekkus and the wolves are trying to chase the scent. You’re safe. You can come out.”
Damek stood, not wanting to lose her warmth, but he couldn’t stay exactly where he was for the rest of his life. One way or another, he had to move on. At least from this small event.
He held out his hand and helped her up. She really was a tiny thing. He could wrap her up in his arms and carry her off to some place safe, where nothing like this could ever happen again.
Only this was real life, and that would likely never happen.
She leaned up and kissed him on his lips.
He forgot to breathe as he rubbed the side of her face with his thumb. Damek had been kissed many times in his life. Yet none had ever stolen his soul like that one did.
He couldn’t move, and like a dummy, he didn’t kiss her back. Zoe. Zoe. Zoe. He tried to remind himself of his wife. It didn’t help. Only Amelia mattered at that moment, and the place where he’d stored his frozen heart thawed. He should feel awful about that. He should hate himself. But he didn’t because all that he could feel in the universe was the heat coming off Amelia.
She stepped back. “Look, I’m sorry I
keep coming on to you. Think of that as the last time. It’s a thank you. Okay?”
Cyrus ran toward them. “They’re searching for him. They’ll find him. I can promise you of this.” He glared at them. “Amelia, are you okay?”
“I am.” She nodded and smiled. “I assume this eliminates me as a suspect in whatever danger is coming?”
Cyrus sighed loudly. “I’m afraid until we know more about what’s going on, we have to reserve judgment. Myron isn’t usually this vague in her predictions. Please, bear with us. Damek will stay with you until we know.”
“Absolutely.” She nodded and walked toward the Haus.
Damek turned toward Cyrus. “They were firing at her. She’s not the bad guy.”
“Unless the whole thing was faked.”
Damek wanted to argue, but Cyrus continued.
“If you’d seen what I’ve seen, you wouldn’t discount that idea. I want to believe she’s free from blame too. She was desperate to get here, and perhaps we can help her find solace from her pain. That’s what I want. But our first priority is safety.”
“Right.”
Damek understood Cyrus’s point. However, his only objective from that moment forward was keeping Amelia alive so he could do something about his new feelings. Cyrus and Rekkus could worry about everyone else. Amelia belonged to him. His cock hardened at the thought.
He’d already let one woman down. It wouldn’t happen again.
Dinner tasted delicious, but all Damek could focus on was the way food traveled from the fork into Amelia’s mouth. Then her lips closed around the instrument, and for three brief seconds they pursed.
Wow. He rubbed his forehead. When had she become an obsession?
“Not eating?” Rekkus sat down next to him. “What’s the matter with the vegan stew tonight? Too salty?”
“Is it vegan?” He looked down. He hadn’t taken a bite, not even one.
The 13th Guest Page 3
