by Stacy Gail
Inwardly she was surprised she hadn’t broken every bone in her body. From her head and neck to her shoulders, arms and legs, every inch of her felt like it had been beaten with hammers. “I’ll be fine.”
“Ugh, she’s going to be one of those patients,” Ella said to Gideon, wrinkling her nose. “Just wait—by tomorrow she’s going to be moving heavy furniture around just to prove how healthy she is.”
“Somehow I’m not surprised.” Gideon’s sorrowful shake of his blond head seemed to lament moronic patients everywhere. “Well, that’s okay, I’ve got that base covered. We’ll just give Kyle these instructions, and then let him deal with her.”
“Kyle.” The mere sound of his name flowed like a balm over her frazzled nerves. “Is he okay? Are they all okay?”
“Everyone’s fine,” Gideon assured her while Ella gave her hand a final squeeze before heading for the door. “I can’t really say the same for the eastbound section of MacArthur Causeway. But hey, a little damage is to be expected when there’s a hurricane, right?”
She grimaced in her guilt. “I really did plow Kyle’s poor car into the barrier.”
“I’m not talking about that. That’s nothing. I’m talking about the six-foot-wide glassy-sided hole that the hottest lightning strike in this planet’s recorded history punched completely through the bridge’s far right lane. It’s weird how all the local TV stations are boasting about this epic lightning strike, like they had something to do with it. It was Kyle who produced it, not them.”
“Yeah, and I nearly knocked Nikita to her death with it. What a great guy I am.”
Nikita’s breath caught, and though it hurt like hell she raised up on an elbow to look at the motor home’s open—and empty—doorway. “Kyle?”
“Down, girl.” Gideon pushed her back against the pillow and adjusted the bed to a reclining position. “You can come on in, Kyle, she’s ready for visitors.”
“Right. Okay.” There was a heavy silence that dimmed Nikita’s joy. Or maybe it was the anxiety creeping in that made everything seem darker. “On second thought, I should probably talk to her from out here. That might be for the best, until she’s, you know...more recovered.”
“I’m sorry, Kyle.” Nikita closed her eyes to fight back a flood of weak, at-the-end-of-her-rope tears. She’d never been one for boo-hooing. But after everything else that had happened, his reluctance to see her was the final straw. “I feel terrible about totaling your car. I know you loved it, and I swear I’ll do whatever it takes to fix or replace—”
“Car? What the fuck, Nikita, you think I give a damn about some stupid car?” In one bound he came into the motor home, shirtless and wingless...and with a cleanly shaved head. “Why the hell would I be thinking about a hunk of metal when I was the idiot who left you alone, put you in danger and wound up almost killing you?”
She couldn’t seem to get her jaw re-hinged as she stared at the gleam of light shining off his scalp. “Oh. My. God. Did you set yourself on fire or something?”
Gideon snorted and beat a hasty retreat for the door. “You’re going to love the explanation for that one, Nikita. It’s just so typically him. Don’t let her move too much,” he added, and the sudden seriousness of his tone seemed to spook Kyle. “There’s no way to wrap or cast a sternal fracture, so the patient has to be calm and still in order for the bone to heal properly.”
“Calm and still.” As the door closed behind Gideon, Kyle shot Nikita an alarmed glance. With his wild tangle of long, sun-streaked beach hair now gone, his eyes seemed larger, dominating his lean face. “I think we’re in trouble. Those aren’t exactly the first two words that come to mind when I think of you.”
“Hair.” She gestured at him, then clutched at the stab of pain in her chest. In a blink of an eye he was at her side, then stopped awkwardly when he began to reach for her. “Where’s your hair, Kyle?”
“I suspect its location might still be a wastebasket up at the house. Though if this were a court of law I wouldn’t be able to swear to that, since it landed there a couple hours ago and Sara seems to be a fussy kind of cleaner-upper. Is it wrong that tidy people like Sara make me want to make messes?”
She stared at him. “Yes, it is, and back up a second. Your gorgeous long hair landed in the garbage? What did it do, cabrón, spontaneously fly off your head?”
“I may have helped it. Haven’t you heard that bald is beautiful?” The hand that had reached out for her instead ran over his smooth head. “Besides, I look really different now, right?”
“That’s the biggest understatement I’ve heard this year. I barely recognized you.”
“Excellent. So...looking at me isn’t too traumatic for you?”
It only took her an instant. “Kyle... I don’t believe this. Did you shave your head because Dantalion adopted your image?”
The flash of harsh misery in his eyes told her she’d scored a bull’s eye. “Let’s face it, Nikita. That demonic bastard wore faces that caused the most pain for his victims. When I saw he was wearing my face, it finally hit me. I’ve put you through more hell than Dantalion ever did. Not letting you know what I really was after you’d been attacked was unforgivable, I see that now. My self-centered silence allowed you to think you were going insane. That’s something I never should have done, and I’ll spend the rest of my life hating myself for doing that to you.”
That alarmed her as nothing else could. “Kyle, I don’t want you to hate yourself. I just don’t want that to ever happen again.”
“It was a test,” came the bitter reply. “And I failed it from start to finish. It’s no wonder Dantalion chose my image to torture you. For the past forty-eight hours I’ve been the scumbag who’s given you nothing but pain.”
Oh, good grief. “That monster adopted your image because there was no way I would have let his demonic ass in the car otherwise.”
“We both know I should have told you everything.” He showed himself no mercy as each word seemed to drag itself from some dark well deep inside him. “I never knew I could be so selfish. There I was, demanding everything from you—your heart, your mind, your body. But I didn’t want to give anything in return. I didn’t believe you had any right to it.”
“When you put it that way, you are a selfish bastard.” She might as well chime in since it didn’t look like he’d be finished any time soon. At the very least she might have a chance of convincing him a repeat performance wouldn’t be tolerated. “If you have any hope of being forgiven, you’d better start telling me why you acted like such a horse’s ass.”
“I told myself I was sparing your sanity by keeping the truth from you, but that was a lie. The fact is I was scared of losing you. You’re grounded and pragmatic and focused—basically everything I’m not. In that context we’re a mismatch even without the angelic DNA. So when you throw that madness into the mix...” He shook his shaved head. “I didn’t think you’d be able to accept that my weirdness is on a supernatural level. I’m still not sure about that.”
“It would have been nice if you’d given me the benefit of the doubt. I’m stronger than I look.”
“Considering you tried to take out Dantalion single-handedly, I’d be a fool to dispute that.” Hesitantly, as though fearing she’d slap him away, he brushed his fingers over the back of her hand. “I guess I went a little nuts when you overheard me talking about being part of the Nephilim. I just didn’t think you’d want me in your life after hearing that. But if my image is the one thing that gives you the most pain, then it’s obvious I have no right to be in your life in the first place.”
“There you go again, doing my thinking for me when I’m perfectly capable of making the decision of who should be in my life.” Finally, without the stress of an impending demonic apocalypse clogging her mind, she saw the truth of how much this man needed her. There wasn’t a woman alive who could resi
st that. “The fact is, you haven’t blown it, Kyle. Not at all.”
“That’s kind of hard to believe.” He couldn’t seem to look at her, and his face was etched with an emotion bordering on what looked like grief. “When Dantalion adopted my image, it was like blinders were suddenly ripped from my eyes. I could finally see that I’m the one who brings you the most misery. My image—”
“Your image is my whole world.” When his disbelieving gaze snapped to hers, clearly startled by the passion thrumming through her words, she tried to find the right words. “It just pissed me off that he was trying to get to me through you. I think my anger and anguish at seeing him wear your face was the reason he used it.”
“Really?” With his expression caught somewhere between despair and hope he inched closer, resting his hip on the edge of the bed. “You... Are you saying you don’t hate my guts after everything I’ve put you through? Because you should. I know you should hate me.”
“I don’t hate you. I’ve never hated you, even when I tried for years to shut you out emotionally. You’ve always been the most dangerous threat to my peace of mind, because you’re the only one who has the ability to pull me out of my numbness and make me feel. You open me up and make me trust you, which is why it hurt so much when I found out you’d kept me in the dark. I felt betrayed.”
“That’ll never happen again. I can’t stand the thought of hurting you like that.” This time he was bolder when his hand touched hers. “What about how I look? Is this going to be a problem?”
“You mean your hair, or lack of it?”
“No, not that.” He waved that away as unimportant. “Are you sure you’re not going to have a panic attack every time you look at me and think I’m Dantalion? You got the two of us confused near the end.”
She made a sound of impatience. “Now that I’m not bleeding to death while a telepathic demon messes with my head, I’m quite happy to report that Dantalion’s version of you and the real thing are worlds apart.”
“Are you sure, Nikita? I mean, I could grow a beard or wear glasses or something...”
It took all her strength not to roll her eyes. Clearly, drastic measures had to be taken. “Dantalion made my skin crawl. You drive me crazy in a way that I can’t get enough of. I’m at my happiest when I’m with you, and I feel like something is missing when we’re apart. And the only pain Dantalion picked up on when I thought of you was the deep regret that I wasted so much time holding myself back from you. My emotions. My heart. My...” She took another careful breath, reveled in the exquisite feeling that bloomed in her heart, and plunged in all the way. “My love.”
The word seemed to turn him into a statue. “Love?”
“Yes, love. As in...I love you.” Once it was said out loud, the sweet sensation in her chest overflowed, and her throat tightened with the raw intensity of being able to voice the words she’d thought she’d never get the chance to say. “I’m in love with you, Kyle.”
For just the briefest moment he closed his eyes before he framed her face in his hands and searched her eyes as if that was the only activity he wanted to do for the rest of his life. “Until now, I didn’t know everything in me was holding its breath, waiting for you to say those words.” With the greatest gentleness he rubbed his lips against hers, and she could feel him start to smile. “I know we’re about as opposite as two people can be, and I have no doubt a magnificent woman like you can do way better than a guy with angelic DNA floating around in his system. But with everything in me, I swear that I will cherish you as the treasure you are. And one more thing—I promise I won’t get mad when you call me cabrón, as long as you let me call you Sparkle.”
Her laugh turned into a whimper as her fractured sternum sent up a protest. “There’s a deal I could never pass up. Now, before I pass out from the pain, how about you tell me what happened after you put a hole in the MacArthur Causeway?”
He made a sound of distress and put a careful hand to her chest as if he wanted to make the pain go away through touch alone. “After the others got back from Dantalion’s funeral—” he waited until she was done snorting then groaning as she pressed a hand on top of his, “—Zeke told me that my lightning strike pretty much crippled that hell spawn, which pleases me no end. While I’ve never used my abilities that way before, I could feel how huge it was inside of me. You were bleeding so badly and in so much pain, and that asshole was wearing my face while torturing you...” Another flash of agony crossed his expression before he swallowed hard and shook his head. “Let’s just say I’ve never been so motivated to put an end to someone.”
“I didn’t think anything from the physical world—lightning—could hurt a spiritual being. That demon seemed pretty confident something like my driving off the side of the causeway wasn’t going to put a dent in him.”
He cringed and kissed her again, as if he couldn’t quite handle hearing about her near-death experience. “You’re a physical being. You were made by other physical beings. Nephilim are made up of both the physical and spiritual, which makes us kind of a big hot mess most of the time. But there’s one thing we can do, and that’s putting the beat-down on spiritual beings that find their way here. We Nephilim can hurt monsters like Dantalion—a fact they proved after I took off with you.”
Her eyes widened. “I thought I caught a glimpse of your friends closing in on a waxy figure and tearing it apart.”
“That’s pretty much what happened. Once he didn’t have you to gain energy from, Dantalion was dismantled by everyone who was left on the bridge—literally. Menlo took one of Dantalion’s wings as proof for his employers that the demon’s been vanquished, while Sara took the other for LSI to study. The rest of him got beaten to a pulp by Nate, then dispatched out of this world entirely by Zeke’s soulfire.”
“Wow.” Nikita blinked. “Wait. Dantalion had wings?”
“In his true form, yeah.”
“So everybody got to curb-stomp Dantalion but you.” She pouted a little, dissatisfied. “I’m sorry I kept you from seeing that demon vanish once and for all.”
He stared at her as if he suspected Dantalion had made her crazy after all. “I got all the licks in that I wanted to when I zapped him and got him away from you. The only thing I cared about at that point was your safety. This demon-hunting marathon we put ourselves through...it was never about Dantalion. For me, it was all about you.”
“Me?”
“You’re the most important person in my life, Nikita. You are my life, and if you ask Nate or Zeke or Sara, they’d no doubt say the same about the people in their lives. I don’t have grandiose illusions about saving the world, I never did. All I care about is keeping our little corner of it safe—for you. When you’re happy, I’m in heaven.”
Her eyes stung at the passion vibrating through his words. Who knew that her Hurricane Kyle could be so sweet. “You may have screwed up a few times along the way, but you weren’t the only one. I was so stupid to hold myself back from you for as long as I did. I promise I’ll never do that again, if you promise me...”
“Anything.” The urgency in his tone took her breath away. “I’ll promise you anything.”
“No more lies, okay? No more hiding who you really are or what you’re dealing with.” She hated the warmth swimming in her eyes, but she didn’t know how to stop it. Not when she was excising the last of the poison Dantalion had left in her. “There was one thing that demon said that I can’t get out of my head. He said that lies are given to people who aren’t worth the truth. I need to know that you believe I’m worthy of all your truths.”
“You are.” His eyes closed on a wince of what looked like pain, as if her words had the power to make him bleed. “I’ve never opened up to anyone about how messed up my family tree is, so I had no clue how to let you in. That failing had nothing to do with your worthiness. It had everything to do with how...” His jaw
knotted, and he looked away. “With how unworthy I am.”
“You’re not unworthy.” Though it hurt to move, she cupped his cheek in her hand and brought his troubled gaze back to hers. “You’re the man I believe in. You’re the man I need to believe in. So if another demonic problem crops up—”
“God forbid.”
“Or if Menlo suddenly turns evil and wants to chop you all into sushi—”
“About that.” Some of the tension eased from his shoulders, and a hint of reluctant humor took its place. “According to Nate, Sara grilled Menlo good and hard on that subject after Dantalion was sent back to hell. I haven’t gotten the full story on it yet, but since Sara and Menlo are currently plowing through a box of vanilla wafers together and talking about making fudge cupcakes for dinner, I figure he must be okay.”
“My point,” Nikita said doggedly, “is that I’m not a child who needs coddling or protecting. If I can help you, even if it’s to just sit and listen to your troubles, then that’s what I want to do. The one thing I won’t do is live with a fear that you’re not telling me something because you don’t have enough faith in my strength to handle it. I won’t live like that, Kyle.”
“I should be whipped off my feet for allowing that fear to be there in the first place.” Shame fought with regret across his face with no clear winner in sight, and he turned his mouth into her palm and kissed it as if it were something precious. “My only defense is that I couldn’t bear the possibility of having you kick me out of your life. You’re just about as perfect as a woman can be, so it follows that you deserve a perfect man. But I’m about as far from perfect as night is from day. Every time I considered telling you about my screwed-up DNA, I kept running into the idea that I’m never going to be the man you deserve.”
“I’m capable of making that decision for myself, my crazy, bald-headed lover.” She smiled even as a single tear fell—a tear not of pain, but of the love that swelled so fiercely inside her she thought she might die of it. “You’re mercurial and funny, dangerous and exciting. You’re my idea of perfect, as long as you promise to allow me to see all those facets you keep hidden from the world. And in return I’ll promise to do the same. Okay?”
