“No. She loves Cliff and wants him to find whatever happiness he can. She just wanted me to be prepared.”
Aidan sighed. “Well, Vince asked Bastien to end his life before the damage progressed too far, so we don’t really know if he would’ve attacked Melanie eventually. Cliff has held out far longer than the others but, despite his valiant efforts, is beginning to lose the battle. His greatest fear now is that he may hurt you.”
“He won’t,” she insisted and wished Cliff wouldn’t worry about that. Even when fury rose within him like magma in a volcano and erupted in the form of shouts and bellows, he never directed that anger at her.
Aidan pointed to the piece of paper she held. “That’s my cell phone number.” He pointed to the box. “And that is one of those cell phone wristwatch gadgets with voice activation. If you want to continue seeing Cliff, program my number into it and keep that watch on you at all times. And I mean all times. When the two of you are making love. When you take a shower. Never take it off.”
She frowned. “Is it waterproof?”
“Yes. And if you have even the slightest fear that Cliff is about to have a break or that he may hurt you, call me immediately. I’m a teleporter, so I can be here in half a second to protect you and help Cliff.”
Everything within Emma demanded she reject this. She didn’t need protection from Cliff. He wouldn’t hurt her. But did she really have a choice? Cliff was the one who’d sent Aidan to talk to her. “He’ll stop coming here if I don’t agree to this, won’t he?”
“Yes. He loves you, Emma. If you love him as much as you appear to, then do this for him and ease his fears. He doesn’t need those on top of everything else he’s facing.”
No, he didn’t. If this would give him some relief, she’d do it.
Nodding, she opened the box and fastened the watch to her wrist. Emma hadn’t worn a watch in years since she always had her phone with her. And she’d certainly never had a smartwatch. So it took a while and several consultations of the instruction manual for them to figure out how to add Aidan’s number and achieve voice recognition. But they finally succeeded.
“Call Aidan,” she said.
Aidan’s cell phone chirped in his pocket.
Both grinned.
“Now,” Aidan said, sobering, “here is something Cliff doesn’t know about.” Reaching into his coat, he withdrew two tranquilizer guns identical to those she’d seen the guards at network headquarters carry.
“Uh-uh,” she said. “No way. I am not going to shoot Cliff.”
“These are tranquilizer guns, already armed with darts that can sedate Cliff should the need arise.”
Shaking her head, she held up her wrist. “I don’t need those. I have this.”
“You need to have a defensive measure that Cliff doesn’t know about, Emma,” he insisted. “Once the brain damage progresses to a certain point, psychotic breaks can occur without warning. If Cliff flies into a rage and rips the watch off your arm, you’ll have to go for one of these. They’ve been specially designed for vampire hunting by the network’s weapons experts, so each can fire up to five darts. A single dart should calm him. Two will knock him out. Three will kill him. Avoid the last if at all possible.” He placed the guns beside her on the sofa. “Hide these where they will be handy in an emergency but where Cliff won’t accidentally happen upon them.”
She eyed them with dread, unable to imagine aiming one at Cliff, let alone shooting him.
“If Cliff hurts you, Emma, it will kill him. He will end it himself in a heartbeat, even if the wound is so minor you shrug it off. If you want to hold on to him, you need to ensure he can’t hurt you.”
She nodded, so inundated with despair she could barely speak. “He said I quiet the voices,” she murmured again.
Aidan nodded. “You do. But the voices are getting louder. And soon you will only dampen them a little.”
She lived in constant fear of that.
Returning his chair to the corner, Aidan headed for the front door. As he reached for the doorknob, she spoke.
“Aidan?”
He turned.
Her limbs weighted with weariness, Emma forced herself to stand and closed the distance between them. Rising onto her toes, she kissed his cheek, then hugged him hard. “Thank you for giving Cliff the sun again.” Though the tranq guns upset her, Aidan was a good man who, like her, was just trying to do whatever he could to save Cliff.
He hugged her back. “Thank you for loving him and bringing him happiness.”
If only that were enough to heal him.
Releasing him, Emma backed away.
“Are you going to see him tonight?” he asked.
“Yes. He’s supposed to come over after he and Bastien finish hunting.”
Aidan smiled. “Then you should shower and wash my scent off you. We don’t want to tempt fate.”
She laughed. “I’ll go do it now.”
As soon as he left, Emma locked the door and headed for the shower.
* * *
Cliff skidded to a halt in Emma’s front yard, dropped the duffel bag, stripped, and cleaned up within seconds. Even on his worst nights, he abided by the ritual. Just the idea of her seeing him coated with the blood of the vampires he’d slain made him cringe.
Then he smiled, thinking of the night she’d peeked through the blinds and caught him.
Her eyes had widened. And when she’d opened the front door and stepped out onto her porch, the look of baffled astonishment on her face had made him grin. “Hi, beautiful,” he’d called, buck naked in the moonlight. He had just finished wiping off every speck of blood and hadn’t yet put on clean clothes.
Mouth hanging open, she’d shaken her head. “What… is happening? Are the voices telling you to streak now?” she’d asked incredulously.
Cliff had burst out laughing.
“Seriously, did you just run all the way here with no clothes on? Because if you did, you’re going to have to tell me what route you took so I can go kick the ass of every woman who saw you naked. That body is mine.”
Once he’d gotten his mirth under control, he had grudgingly confessed that he always changed clothes before he saw her and why.
She’d told him he didn’t have to. He’d insisted he did. It remained vitally important to him that he keep the violence of the hunt separate from his time with her.
So here he stood again, naked on her front lawn.
Cliff swiftly garbed himself in clean clothes, headed up the stone walkway, and rang the doorbell. Emma had tried to give him a key, but he drew comfort from the routine of it… and wanted to leave her the choice of whether she felt like seeing him and dealing with his insanity. He would think that sooner or later she was going to need a break.
The door swung open.
Emma smiled up at him and greeted him with a kiss as she always did. “Hi, honey.”
As he entered, however, a new scent reached his nose. He drew in a deep breath and held it as she closed the door. Turning to face her, he studied her carefully. “Aidan was here.”
Her pretty face crinkled up with consternation. “Yes. And let me just say that sometimes your heightened senses freak me out a little. Do you know how creepy it is that he can smell me on you?”
Cliff stared at her. “He told you that?”
“Yes, when I asked how he knew we’d been seeing each other.”
“Oh. I figured he’d probably just seen you in my thoughts.”
“He said that, too.” She scowled. “He better not have seen any hot naked times.”
That gave him pause. “If he did, I’m sure he skimmed past them. He’s a good guy.”
“Yeah. I think so, too.” She bit her lip. “Ooh. I hope he wasn’t reading my thoughts the first few minutes I spoke with him.”
“Why? What were you thinking?”
She titled her chin up in a gesture of defiance. “That if he was here to tell me I shouldn’
t see you anymore, he could go fuck himself.”
Cliff would smile over that later. Right now, however, his attention fell to her wrist and stayed there. Setting the duffel bag down, he gently clasped her hand and her elbow and raised her forearm so he could study the new smartwatch. He’d never owned such a device and wasn’t sure how they worked. The watches he wore were standard fare, inexpensive and easily replaced since vampires shattered them periodically.
The watch that now graced Emma’s slender wrist, however, was sleek and black with a numberless face that boasted dancing flames.
He met her gaze, uncertain of her response to the gift and his friend’s visit.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she said softly, nodding at the watch. “It isn’t necessary.”
“Yes, it is.”
Moving closer until her body nearly touched his, she stared up at him. Love and certainty gleamed in her brown eyes. “You aren’t going to hurt me, Cliff.”
How he wished he shared her confidence. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do,” she countered, her voice still soft and full of affection. “You aren’t going to hurt me. And you don’t frighten me even when you fly into a rage. Does it startle me sometimes?” She smiled. “Yes. Because that deep, sexy voice of yours can get loud. But whatever horrible things are going on up there”—she tapped his forehead—“will only ever hurt me if they drive you to harm yourself.” Arching a brow, she gave him a stern look. “And if that ever happens, I’m telling you right now that I’m going to paddle your ass and give those voices a stern talking to.”
Relieved that she wasn’t angry over his sending Aidan to her, Cliff drew her into a tight hug and buried his face in her hair. “Damn, I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Snuggling into him, she released a contented sigh. “But I’m dead serious about paddling your ass.”
Cliff laughed.
“How was your day?”
“A lot like yesterday. Not great in the beginning because I couldn’t sleep.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, taking comfort in the familiar scent of coconut oil. “But Aidan took me into the sunlight again.”
She tilted her head back. “It really doesn’t hurt?”
“Not at all. I feel like shit though because I know it hurts him.”
“He wouldn’t do it if he didn’t want to, Cliff.”
“I know.”
“And it quiets the voices?”
“Yeah. At least it has both times we tried it. Between that and working out my aggressive impulses while hunting, I feel better than I have in months.”
“Excellent. What would you like to do tonight?”
“Dinner and dancing?”
She grinned. “Dinner and dancing it is.”
They prepared a meal together, creating what Cliff hoped would be another fond memory for her. With the voices reduced to angry murmurs, he could enjoy teasing and bantering with her, stealing kisses and caresses while he put together salads and she whipped up some fettuccine Alfredo.
They ate at the coffee table, sitting cross-legged on the floor across from each other, knees touching. Cliff smiled and nodded as she told him about her day. He laughed when she relayed Cynthia’s description of Todd’s latest attempt to spice up their love life with more role-playing.
“Where does he get these ideas?” he asked around a chuckle.
She shook her head. “He knows she likes historical romance novels.”
“So he thought a full suit of armor would be sexy?”
She laughed. “Until he fell down and couldn’t get back up again because it was so damn heavy.”
Once they cleaned the dishes and tucked away the leftovers—activities so wonderfully domestic that he didn’t find them tedious as some did—they took her phone and Bose speaker out onto the front porch.
Emma donned some sneakers while Cliff programmed a playlist with both fast and slow songs. Then he led her down the steps, onto her front lawn, and drew her close.
They danced for almost an hour before the cursed voices rose in volume.
Sensing the change in him, she took his face in both hands and drew him down for a kiss. “Take me, Cliff. I want you.”
He wanted her, too. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her inside and lowered her to the bed. He wanted to go slow. Wanted to remind her of the tenderness of which he was capable. Wanted to show her the reverence and adoration he felt for her. But the fucking voices kept bellowing in his ears. Fury and frustration rose as he fought to block them out. And desperation once again roughened his touch.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured afterward, his body curled around hers. “I wanted to go slow. To be gentle.”
Reaching back, she rested a hand on his hip and urged him tighter against her. “Three orgasms, honey,” she mumbled as sleep crept up on her. “Three orgasms.” She sighed. “You’re the only man on the planet who would apologize for that.”
Because she deserved so much more than he could give her.
“Love you,” she breathed.
“I love you, too.”
Sleep claimed her.
Cliff held her as long as he could before the fury and aggression within him approached dangerous highs. Slipping silently from the bed, he dressed, grabbed his duffel, and left.
A sojourn in sunlight and slaying multiple vampires had only given him a few hours’ respite from the voices and the violent impulses they inspired.
What would happen when those few hours were reduced to mere minutes?
The question haunted him long after he returned to the network.
Chapter Twenty-One
Emma stared, unseeing, at her computer screen.
She couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything today. She was supposed to be arranging new identities for five Immortal Guardians and facilitating their transfer, along with their Seconds, to new locations here in the States and overseas. But she’d gotten nothing done.
She blinked hard. Her eyes felt as if she had rubbed salt into them. Her shoulders slumped with weariness.
Cliff hadn’t come by last night.
It happened from time to time and almost always stemmed from a psychotic break.
But he’d seemed so much better two nights ago. They’d made dinner together. They’d danced. He’d smiled and laughed more than he had in months. And despite his concern that he’d been too rough when they’d made love, his touch had carried hints of the tenderness he felt for her. The tenderness the madness rarely let him show now.
Had something happened?
Had Aidan changed his mind about taking Cliff into the sun?
Cliff had been struggling more lately and—
Ding. A message popped up on her computer screen.
She frowned at it.
Good afternoon, Emma. Mr. Reordon would like to see you in his office. Please make your way here without disclosing the contents of this message to anyone you encounter.
Best,
Kate Buchanan
Executive Assistant to Mr. Reordon
What the hell? Was he pissed because she hadn’t finished fabricating the new identities and—?
Her eyes widened.
Oh shit. Had he found out she and Cliff were seeing each other?
Her heartbeat picked up.
The message vanished. Another appeared.
Be advised, Mr. Reordon does not like to be kept waiting.
Best,
Kate
Pushing back her chair, Emma rose.
The message vanished.
Limbs stiff, anxiety coursing through her, she left her office and headed for the elevator.
It opened at her approach. Three guards waited within.
“Ms. Williams?” one said.
“Yes.”
Nodding, he moved aside and motioned for her to enter.
One of the physical therapists who worked on this floor approached the open do
ors of the elevator.
The same guard who spoke to Emma held up a hand to keep him out and addressed the man. “We’ll send it back for you.”
Crap. She wasn’t being fired, was she? Were these guards here to ensure she didn’t make a fuss when Mr. Reordon handed her her walking papers?
She looked at the burly, heavily armed men who towered over her despite her average height.
How big a fuss did they expect her to make?
Once the elevator completed the short climb to the ground floor, the guards guided her down the hallway that led to Mr. Reordon’s office. Emma had only been there a couple of times. The last had been after the mercenaries attacked. One by one, Mr. Reordon had called every employee who had been working the morning of the mercenary attack into his office to ask how they were doing, if they needed anything. Counseling? Maybe a change of hours?
She glanced at the guards from the corners of her eyes.
Something told her this visit wasn’t going to be as pleasant.
A dozen guards manned the entrance to the reception room at the end of the hallway. There had been no guards outside it the last time she’d come.
Inside the reception room, Kate Buchanan sat at a large desk situated in front of a wall of file cabinets. An elegant, formfitting business suit hugged the lines of her hourglass figure, making Emma feel dowdy in her jeans and blazer.
Todd and a dozen more guards bracketed the entrance to Mr. Reordon’s office.
Seriously, what the hell was all this?
Kate glanced up as Emma and her armed escort entered. When she rose, Kate’s unbuttoned jacket gaped just enough for Emma to glimpse what looked like a weapon housed in a shoulder holster. “Thank you, gentlemen.” As she rounded the desk, she addressed Emma. “Thank you for coming so quickly, Ms. Williams. Would you follow me, please?”
Emma could detect no rancor in the woman’s tone. She could detect no emotion at all. Kate was all business as she led Emma to Mr. Reordon’s office, motioned for her to enter, then slipped inside and closed the door behind them.
Emma frowned. The large office was empty.
“It’ll be just a moment,” Kate murmured.
A door on one side opened. Chris Reordon stepped into the doorway and glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
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