by Maya Banks
CHAPTER 15
IT was pitch black when Nathan landed. The sky was overcast. No stars. No moon. There was a murkiness to the air that left him uneasy and stirred his panic.
He was impatient with the time it took to square away paperwork and make sure the jet was adequately hangared. His cell phone was buzzing his leg off. Missed calls, current calls, texts and voice mails from his family.
He ignored them all but knew he had to tell them something. He picked up his phone as he jogged toward the parking lot, where the rental was supposed to be waiting. He didn’t want to get involved in a conversation because there was no way it could end well.
So he sent a text to Joe.
I’m okay. Don’t worry. Keep family off my back. I need to do this. Be in touch soon.
As soon as he hit Send, he shut off the phone and tossed his pack into the jeep.
He’d tried to plan for any eventuality in the few minutes he had to gather his wits and hit the road. But his one thought was to get to Shea, however he had to do it.
He took a moment to reach into his pack, retrieve his pistol and make sure his clip was loaded. He pulled out the assault rifle, popped in the magazine and then laid it on the seat. He shoved the Glock into the shoulder harness and did a quick inventory of his supplies.
He had no idea what he was up against, but he was prepared for damn near anything.
Automatically he reached for Shea. They hadn’t communicated much during the flight. She needed to rest and regain her strength, but he’d checked in periodically, always afraid that she’d simply be gone.
Shea. I’m here, baby. I’m not far. Where are you?
He felt her stir as though she’d been asleep. He felt her grogginess and then her sudden fear and self-condemnation that she’d allowed herself to drift off. He ached to hold her and to ease her fear, just as she’d once done for him.
I’m in a culvert. She struggled to clear her mind of the cobwebs. There’s a drainage ditch just past the sign saying two miles from the city limits. I hid there.
Sit tight. Don’t move a muscle until I get there.
Nathan roared down the highway, the headlights bouncing erratically off the landscape. He kept at the speed limit because he couldn’t afford to be pulled over with a freaking arsenal in the jeep.
He was traveling in reverse of the way Shea had come in and as a result he passed over the culvert before he realized it. Swearing, he executed a sharp U-turn and spun back around. His headlights flashed over the sign Shea had referenced and he slowed to a crawl until he saw the deep drainage ditch cutting under the road.
His heart nearly stopped as he pulled onto the shoulder. His palms went slick on the steering wheel. His pulse raced so hard he was light-headed.
Just a few feet away was Shea. The woman—the angel—who’d invaded his mind. All his doubts surfaced, but all he had to do was open his door and get out. He would have his proof, and until now he’d had no idea how badly he wanted her to be real.
He needed her.
Needed to touch her. Needed to hold her. Needed to keep her safe.
He grabbed his flashlight, his gun, and scrambled out of the jeep. His feet skidded along the gravel and then he headed down the sharp incline.
“Shea?”
It felt weird to be speaking to her aloud. Her name came out hoarse and unsure. His grip tightened around his pistol when he heard a slight sound from within the culvert.
He shone the light inside as he raised the gun. He was met by wide, frightened eyes. His heart damn near exploded out of his chest. She was real. It was her.
“Shea, it’s me, Nathan.”
She raised her arm to shield her eyes from the light, and he yanked it down so the culvert would be illuminated but she wouldn’t be blinded.
She tried to push herself upward, but she fell and bumped her head on the side of the culvert. He shoved the gun back into the holster then crawled inside, ducking low, and when he reached her, he did what he’d been dying to do from the moment she first slipped into his mind.
He grabbed her into his arms and molded her tight against his chest. She let out a small sigh and melted into his embrace, her body so soft and warm against him.
“You came,” she whispered. “You came.”
“I’d never leave you alone.”
He stroked her hair and tried to calm his racing heart. She was real. She was here in his arms. He couldn’t even take it all in.
Remembering where they were and that he needed to get her to a safer place, he carefully eased backward, putting enough distance between them that he could take her hand.
“Come on, baby. Let’s get you out of here.”
She gripped his hand, her fingers digging into his palm. She clung to him like he was her lifeline, but in fact she was his. He eased out of the culvert, one hand holding hers, the other cupped over her head to keep her from hitting it on the way out.
Once outside, she eased upward on unsteady feet. He quickly shone the flashlight beam over her to check for injuries. He frowned when he got to her feet. Her bare, scraped-up, bruised feet.
With a muttered curse, he pocketed the flashlight and then swung her into his arms to carry her up the incline to the jeep.
She didn’t make a sound the entire way. She laid her head on his chest and burrowed into his hold. She clutched his shoulder like she was afraid he’d disappear.
He put her down long enough to throw his gear in the back and then he put her into the passenger seat, securing the seat belt around her. For a moment he stood staring down at her, awed by the fact that she was in front of him. Real. Tangible. Not in his head.
Her blond hair was bedraggled and lay limply against her head. Her blue eyes were dull with fatigue. She was dirty and disheveled, and he’d never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.
He reached out to softly caress her cheek, unable to resist the opportunity to touch her once more. She closed her eyes and slid her cheek over his palm as if she found as much pleasure in his touch as he did in touching her.
The sound of a distant car dragged him abruptly back to awareness. He slammed her door shut and bolted around to the driver’s side. He pulled onto the highway seconds later and directed the jeep into the town of Crescent City.
He felt her gaze on him as he entered the city limits. He glanced sideways to see her staring at him. Did she know how affected he was by her? How gutted he was to finally be face-to-face with her?
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said softly, a thread of wonder in her voice. “I’ve imagined it so many times. I’m half afraid I’ll wake up and this will all be a dream.”
He lifted his hand and touched the side of her hair before running his finger over her cheekbone. “I was right. You are an angel.”
She smiled faintly, but then her lips turned down into a troubled frown and the lights from passing streetlamps highlighted the shadows in her eyes.
“I’m afraid, Nathan.”
“Shhh, baby. I’m going to take care of you. Just like you took care of me. First thing we’re going to do is get the hell out of town. Go north. Put some miles between us and the assholes after you. We can’t take the jet yet. It won’t be ready, and I want to stay away from the airport until we’re ready to fly out of here. For now we’ll get a place to stay so you can clean up and I can make sure you aren’t hurt.”
Her relief was palpable. Her entire body shook and she leaned back, resting her head against the seat. “Thank you. I was so scared. I knew I wouldn’t make it alone and I don’t know whom I can trust.”
“You can trust me.”
She nodded tiredly. “I know. I know.”
“We have a long drive. I don’t want to stop until we’re well away from here. Tell me what I need to know while I drive. I’m sure we have a lot of…questions. About each other. About this…connection. But for now, let’s put that aside so we can focus on the most important thing. Your safety.”
She nodded again an
d then surprised him by reaching for his hand. She laced her fingers with his and let their hands rest on the seat beside her.
“I’ve been running from them for a year,” she said quietly. “They killed my parents. They want me and my sister, Grace. But especially Grace.”
“Okay, why do they want Grace so badly?”
Shea sucked in a breath. “She can heal people. Really heal people. I can take their pain but I can’t fix them. Grace can. It was she who helped me help your friend when you were escaping.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m not sure I get the difference. You take pain. You take on the wound. How is that not healing?”
She sighed and rubbed her head tiredly. “It’s different. I know it all sounds crazy, but I can draw pain away from an individual. I even seemingly absorb the wound. But I don’t really. It’s temporary. Even the pain I take is temporary because after a while, it comes back. Because I don’t heal them. I’m like a Band-Aid. A temporary fix. When it’s all said and done, the affliction remains. You know like when you were…h-hurt…”
She drifted off momentarily, her face haunted by the memory of what he’d endured.
“When you were hurt, I took your pain but I didn’t heal your injuries. You still bear the scars. You had the cuts, you bled. What I did for you was temporary. What Grace does isn’t temporary. She actually heals the person. She takes the wound or illness, siphons it away like I do with pain and it’s like they never had an injury or were sick. Like she did for Swanny. She did for him what I couldn’t do for you,” she said painfully.
If he hadn’t already been exposed to all Shea could do, he would have said bullshit. But he’d experienced firsthand that healing ability. He’d thought Shea had done it. Swanny knew it too. He knew something had saved him.
“The problem is, healing comes at a great cost to Grace, which is why she has to be so careful. It’s hard on her because she’s so tenderhearted. She can’t stand to see people suffer. She’d help them all if she could. But it would kill her. And so she tries to stay away from people as much as she can because she can’t refuse anyone.”
Nathan frowned. “Did helping Swanny hurt her? What happens exactly?”
“I wouldn’t let her help him for long. Just enough that he could move again. But yes, it hurt her. Just like I take the wound or the pain of someone I’m connected to, she takes the actual illness or injury.”
“But wait a minute, you take the injury too. I felt your pain, Shea. I could feel those cuts on you. I smelled your blood, goddamn it.”
“It’s different. I know it sounds far-fetched. Ridiculous even. In some ways I have it far better than Grace. The wounds do appear on me. I feel the pain. But it doesn’t last long. They appear and then they fade. For the time they’re present, they are very much real. I bleed, hurt, feel it as though it happened in real time, as if someone stood over me with a knife. But then they go away. With Grace, she takes on the injury or the illness, and her body processes it differently. At a much slower rate. She heals the wound itself, and so it takes her much longer to rid herself of the injury. She could die doing what she does. If she gets overloaded. If she does too much, her body could shut down and she wouldn’t recover. We simply don’t know and I’m afraid to risk her.”
“Where is she now?”
Shea’s mouth quivered and she picked up her other hand to wipe at her eyes. “I don’t know. It’s complicated. We can speak to each other. Like you and I did. But I don’t because I can pick up things through the link. I can see things. The surroundings. It’s possible I’d know where she is and I knew if I was ever caught that they’d try to get information from me in any way they could. So I closed myself off from her because I couldn’t very well give them information I didn’t have.”
Nathan’s blood ran cold. “What did they do to you, Shea?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said wearily.
“The hell it doesn’t!”
“It’s over and done with. I escaped. Now you came. I’m safe.”
“What did they do?” he ground out.
“They drugged me. They interrogated me. They wanted to know how to find Grace. I didn’t know, so I couldn’t tell them. Grace is safe. That’s all that’s important.”
Nathan swore under his breath. She wasn’t telling him the whole story. The idea of some bastard torturing her for information made him physically ill. She’d already endured far too much for him when he’d been in captivity.
“Do you know who they are?” Nathan asked. “Do you know anything about them at all?”
Her fingers tightened around his. “Grace was doing some investigating, but I begged her to stop. We can’t take the chance. I suspect it’s a government agency or group simply because they seem so well funded. They’ve dogged my steps for the last year. I move frequently. I never stay in the same place for long. Just long enough to earn enough money to keep running. The longest was two months in Kansas City, but they caught up to me there as well. I’ve tried to be methodical. I’ve tried to be unpredictable, but I swear I’m becoming predictable in my unpredictability. I’m so tired, Nathan. I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know how much longer I can keep evading them.”
The hopelessness in her voice made Nathan’s gut tighten. “You’re not alone anymore, Shea. You have me now. I’m not going to let those bastards hurt you. We’ll figure this out. Together.”
She squeezed his hand again. Tears shone in her eyes, reflected in the glow of the dashboard. “Thank you.”
He squeezed back. “No. Thank you, baby. I got to see my family again because of you.”
CHAPTER 16
NATHAN pulled into the lot of a small motel just as the sky was starting to lighten to the east. They had driven through the night, stopping only long enough to get food and water for Shea. He’d wanted to examine her for injuries, but she’d insisted they keep going. She had just dozed off a half hour before, and he hated to wake her, but he didn’t want to leave her unprotected for the time he needed to arrange the room. Neither did he want her to be seen by anyone who could identify her to her pursuers. Which meant she needed to be awake and prepared for anything.
He gently shook her. Her eyes popped open and she stared around in a near panic before her gaze settled on him. Then she sagged into the seat in relief.
He palmed his Glock and then extended it to her, stock first.
“Know how to use this?”
She took it without hesitation, chambered a bullet and then thumbed the safety. Guess that answered his question.
“I’ll be right back. Watch out. Only shoot if you have to.”
She nodded, but her attention was already focused away from him and on the area surrounding the parking lot.
Nathan hurried in, paid for a room and then went back out for Shea. He’d purposely scoped a motel with rooms that opened on the outside so that Shea would never have to travel through the lobby.
Before he allowed her out of the jeep, he draped one of his fleece jackets around her and pulled the hood over her hair.
“Can you walk?” he murmured. Carrying her would gain too much notice.
She swung around, and it was then he remembered her bare feet. With a curse, he rummaged in his bag and pulled out a pair of his socks.
He slipped them on and then helped her down. He handed her the key and said, “Go on ahead. I’ll get the bags.”
She glanced at the number on the tag and then walked in the direction of the door sporting the same number. Nathan watched her walk away in his socks, absurdly captivated by the image.
He grabbed his bags, locked up the jeep and then headed for the room. The door was left slightly ajar, and he pushed it open with his foot. As he shouldered his way in, he saw Shea sitting on the edge of the bed.
She looked up and their gazes locked. He dropped the bags to the floor, kicked the door shut with his foot and then strode over to where she sat.
She stood at the same moment he reached her,
and he crushed her into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held on just as tightly as he held her.
He inhaled her scent, uncaring of the blood and dirt and grime that permeated her hair and clothing. He was holding her. Finally holding her.
“You’re real. You’re real.”
She pulled away, looked up at him, the same answering emotion shining in her blue eyes. With a groan, he lowered his mouth to hers. He couldn’t hold back. Nothing in the world would have kept him from kissing her in that moment.
He was overcome.
Her mouth, sweet and warm, melted against his. He’d never felt something so completely right in his life. As if everything had worked up to this moment.
She felt small and delicate in his arms. She quivered even as she kissed him back, her lips moving in a slow, sensual slide across his.
He was wrecked. Completely and utterly wrecked.
He gripped her shoulders and pulled away, his legs weak and shaky. He should be caring for her. Seeing to her needs. But he couldn’t keep his hands from her. The need to touch her, to reassure himself that she was finally…his.
Yes, his. And not finally. She’d been his from the moment she’d touched his mind. Perhaps it was why he’d gone crazy when she left him. It was like having a part of his soul ripped out. The months since had been a torture of a different kind. But now she was here. In the flesh. Not just in his mind. And he’d be damned if he’d let her go again.
“We need to get you cleaned up, baby. Let me go turn on the shower so it’ll warm up then we’ll get you out of these clothes. I want to see how bad it is.”
She stirred, a protest forming on her lips. “I’m okay, Nathan. Really.”
“I want to see that for myself.”
His tone brooked no argument and finally she nodded, her shoulders slumping in defeat. He left her long enough to turn on the shower and then he came back where she still stood by the bed.
“Do you need my help?”
