Before the Storm

by Claire Ashgrove

  Wanting to hold onto him in some small fashion, I rested my palm against his cheek and opened to the kiss. What had brought me here, my purpose for being with Kale and what the camarilla wanted of me faded from my mind entirely as I closed my eyes and let the simple magic of a man’s touch entice me into another world. A world where I had no past to hide from, no blood on my hands, and no responsibilities weighing on my shoulders.

  A world where it was easy to let down my walls and let Kale in.

  As our kiss deepened in intensity, Kale fitted his free hand at my waist, slid strong fingers up my spine. I leaned into the envelope of his embrace until our upper bodies pressed flush against each other. Through our clothing, I felt the heavy beat of his heart. Desire stirred low in my belly, pleasantly tightening it with the need for more contact. More of him.

  Kale drew away, his breathing hard and unsteady. He lifted his lashes, and those amazing eyes burned with indigo color. He veiled them once more with a long, slow, blink, then drew away, lowering his hand from my face. The other remained on my waist.

  Every self-preservation instinct I possessed screamed at me to get the hell off the tree trunk and distance myself. But I refused to obey. I would not run away. We’d kissed. Nothing more, nothing less. He might have touched my soul, somehow, in that embrace—the way it trembled insinuated he had—but I wasn’t turning chicken when I had another few days to spend with him.

  No, I was going to play this off like the twenty-two-year-old adult I was. Like I’d been kissed breathless uncountable times.

  “Not bad,” I whispered.

  He arched an eyebrow and gave into a low, rumbling laugh. “That’s it? No lightning bolt? No shoving me off onto my ass? No punches thrown?”

  I slid him a sideways glance of false warning. “You’re safe…for now.”

  “And next time?”

  The seriousness underlying his question drew me up short. I needed to stop this now. I wasn’t hanging around this camarilla—they wanted too much from me. And yet, I wanted that next time so badly tingles chased through my body. I stared, terrified to the root of my being, unable to form a response.

  Kale brushed the back of his knuckles across my cheek. “You can trust me, Halle.”

  “I don’t know anything about you,” I blurted.

  “Then learn.”

  “How?” To anyone else, the question might seem foolish. I half expected Kale to laugh. But he didn’t. It was as if he knew exactly how it felt to live in solitude, to isolate one’s self so far from other human beings that the very simplest of behaviors seemed daunting and foreign. He simply held my gaze, a soft smile dancing at the corners of his mouth.

  “I’m right here. I’ve been here every day. All you have to do is look and listen.”

  I gave him a shaky nod. Unable to withstand the way his gaze made my heartbeat unsteady, I looked to the encroaching stars above. “It’s getting late.”

  “You’re deflecting.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too. You’re avoiding this conversation.”

  With a harassed sigh, I slid off the tree trunk, took several steps away, and keeping my back to him, crossed my arms over my chest. “What do you want me to say? You kissed me. It’s not like you proposed or something. I’ve been kissed before.”

  “It’s not what I want you to say, Halle. But what you want to say. I’ve been kissed before too. Never like that.”

  So he’d felt it too, that strange erasing of time and place and the slow fusion of something more than our tongues. I frowned at the ground.

  The feel of his arms sliding around me startled me. I hadn’t even heard him approach. But as my spine went rigid, he eased my back against his chest, and the comfort of his embrace softened the walls I’d spent most of my life building. I let him hold me.

  “I’m one hundred and fifty-two years old,” he murmured at my ear. “And I am part Yaksini. That’s why I had to fight the banshee. Now you know something about me. Let’s start there.”

  I heard what he said. Loud and clear. And yet, I couldn’t process it. Couldn’t link all the impossibilities together. One hundred and fifty-two years old? Part Yaksini yet destined to lead the Tolvenar? How could any of that be true? Confused, I turned in his arms. His hands laced together at my lower back, holding me close.

  Kale shook his head. “Don’t try to make sense of it right now. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Just let me in, Halle. Let me experience all of you. Even if it’s only for however long you stay.”

  I watched his lips move as he spoke. The gentle cadence of his voice washed over me like the rains that came with spring, full of promise and life. Moving without really realizing I was, I lifted to my toes and answered the only way I could—I captured him in another kiss.

  Twelve

  I was shaking from head to toe by the time Kale tore his mouth away and stepped back, holding me at arms’ distance. Whatever spark had lighted the first time around ignited with the second. A dozen conflicting emotions surged through me: I wanted him, he terrified me, the idea of trusting someone tempted and at the same time made me want to run like hell. I didn’t know what to say, what to do, or even what, if anything, came next.

  In short, I was overwhelmed. By him. By my own emotions. By everything it all meant.

  I put my hands up before me, warding him off, and took another step away. “I need…to go.”

  “Halle.”

  “No.” I backed up again. “I’m not doing the whole deflecting thing. I promise.” I took another step. “I just need…to think.”

  He stared at me a long moment, a frown tugging at his brow, before he gave me a short nod. “Okay, I’ll take you back.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. “I know the way.”

  “Yeah, and we might be in camarilla land, but there were banshees here the other night. Not taking chances.” With that, he wrapped his hand around mine and tugged me along beside him.

  The first three-dozen steps or so had me so antsy I wanted to shake my hand free and step sideways a good two feet. But he wouldn’t loosen his hold, and that tight grip slowly worked the knots out of my system. The amicable companionship returned. He didn’t broach the kiss again, didn’t drag me into conversation I couldn’t handle. Once more, he returned to pointing out different plants—some of which I’d already learned to identify—and carrying on like nothing had happened.

  Precisely the way I needed him to behave.

  We ended up at my door, still loosely holding hands. As I reached for the knob, Kale pulled me back. With a slight twist, he maneuvered me so my back rested against the wood and his palms braced on either side of my shoulders. Elbows bent, he leaned into my body. “Let me fix you breakfast in the morning.”

  Damn. So much for comfortable companionship. My unease surfaced with a clang of my heart. “Kale…you can’t…stay the night.”

  He chuckled, throwing me off guard. As he captured a lock of my hair in one hand and pushed it behind my ear, he said, “I didn’t say anything about staying the night. Just breakfast.”

  Down the hall, a door opened. We both glanced sideways as my neighbor, Art, acknowledged us with a nod then proceeded toward the atrium. When Kale turned back to me, I searched his expression for answers to questions I didn’t know.

  “People are going to talk,” I murmured.

  “And what will they say? They’ve been talking about you for years.”

  True. How quickly I forgot. But his teasing brought a grin to my face. “Okay, I’ll make you a deal then. You can cook breakfast if you promise to tell me more about you being Yaksini and how that all works.”

  His frown was immediate. “How about I tell you about your mother?”

  My mother. The very thought of her was like pulling a string around my heart. My chest tightened. My pulse skipped several beats. “You…know about my mom?”

  “A bit.”

  “And you haven’t told me befor
e now?” A sharp edge crept into my words. Damn it. I didn’t want to accuse him, didn’t want to think he’d deliberately kept her from me. But it was so instinctual to mistrust.

  “We’ve been busy with magic.”

  I blinked. That was supposed to be reason enough? We could have made time to discuss my mother.

  Before I could splutter the condescending remarks that bubbled to the surface, Kale feathered a kiss across my cheek. “I didn’t realize it was so important to you.”

  Double damn him for being right. I might know how much I yearned for information about my mother, but I had never shared that desire with him. Or anyone else. I couldn’t blame him for focusing on magic when I hadn’t given him the information to begin with.

  Still, I hated to admit the depth of my wrongness. I pursed my lips, then gave up all together, choosing the easier: “What time’s breakfast?”

  “Seven.”

  “You have got to be kidding. It’s after midnight now.”

  “Okay, eight then.”

  I rolled my eyes and groaned. “You are a slave driver.”

  His hands slid down the doorframe, settled on my hips, and tugged me forward until our bodies aligned. “All you have to do is roll out of bed. I promise.”

  Oh, wow…the feel of him from head to toe. It was all I could do not to close my eyes and moan. Strong in all the right places. Hard and soft all at once. And oh so warm. His mouth was so damned close.

  But the awareness we weren’t the only ones occupying the hall, stopped me from looping my arms around his neck and tugging that amazing mouth to mine. I cleared my throat, reached behind me for the doorknob. “Eight o’clock. I seriously hate you. I’m going to bed now.”

  Chuckling, Kale released me. “Goodnight, Halle. Sweet dreams.”

  Sweet dreams, indeed! I ducked into my room and shut the door before the temptation to tell him I’d like those dreams to come true could override my sense. A couple of kisses, and the guy had me thinking hot sex and long mornings spent in bed. I wasn’t even staying here more than a couple more days—what in the world had gotten so tangled up inside my head?

  Quack-quack.

  Great. Tufty. I’d completely forgotten about his being locked in the bathroom. I dashed down the hall and threw open the bathroom door. His head popped over the edge of the tub. Dark eyes locked on my face.

  Quack!

  “Yes, I missed you too. Come here.” I bent over the tub and scooped him into my arms. “Let’s get you dried off. Then I think we’ll call it an early night. Evidently we have to get up early.”

  When I set him on the floor, he fell into his adorable waddle and followed me down the hall.

  Thirteen

  My early to bed plan failed miserably. Thoughts of Kale and the changes in our relationship kept me tossing and turning, until I finally gave up and trudged into the front room to silence my brain with more research. Somewhere during the wee hours of morning, I crawled onto the couch, Tufty tucked in by my feet.

  I woke to a deafening clatter.

  My father had tormented most of my dreams, and that sound rang distinctly like the clang of dishes after he’d stumbled home from some all-night venture. That clang and bang had been my alarm bell—shortly thereafter he stumbled into my room. I was programmed to recognize it.

  And I shot off that couch prepared to kill the bastard all over again.

  I don’t really know exactly what happened. But the instant I spun to face my kitchenette, blazing light burst through the room. No, not light. Fire. Like an enormous sunbeam, a ray of fire zinged over the back of the couch and across the countertop. It hit solidly. Dropping the intruder to the tiled floor behind the cabinet.

  But the man I’d brought to his knees wasn’t my father. In the three seconds it took to realize I wasn’t dreaming, I recognized Kale’s broad shoulders.

  “Shit!” I vaulted over the sofa in one burst of speed and skidded around the corner.

  Kale rolled onto his side with a groan, facing the sink, not my open-mouthed stare. “Fuck,” he groaned again.

  “Jesus Christ! What are you doing here?” I dropped to my knees behind him and reached for the singed material of his shirt.

  “Breakfast,” he rasped. “You were…sleeping. Door…was open.”

  “And you thought you could just walk in?” I tugged at the torn cotton, peeling it away from his ribcage to examine scarlet skin beneath. No blood. Thank God. “Are you okay?”

  “Give me…a minute.” He curled into his body, hunching his shoulders forward, and lay utterly still.

  I leaned further over, glancing at his face. His brows were drawn tight in a pained grimace, and his mouth formed an even tighter line. By the tick of his jaw, I recognized the clench of his teeth. His shirt had pulled, exposing more of his ribcage, and to my horror, I caught angry red streaks of blood.

  “You’re bleeding!” I pushed to a crouch. What had my aunt used when I put my hand on a hot burner? Aloe. Only there wasn’t any aloe plant sitting in the window sill, like in her kitchen. All I had was a dishrag draped across the faucet.

  I grabbed it, spun the faucet on, and soaked it in cold water. Kale grunted where he lay as I wrung the cloth out. “Hold still.” Kneeling beside him again, I pushed at his shirt. “Let me put this on it. Do you have aloe?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Fine, my ass. You’re bleeding. And your skin looks like you sat in the sun with Crisco on.” Hastily, I shoved his shirt the rest of the way up his back. Only now, where the streaks had been before, his skin held a chafed appearance. It was still angry red, but the marks that had definitely been bleeding were healed. Dumbfounded, I stared.

  “See? No blood. Give me another minute to catch my breath.” He closed his eyes again, with only a faint touch of the pained expression still clinging to the tight corners of his eyes.

  It took all my self-control not to stand up and kick him in the ass. Jesus. He’d scared the holy crap out of me. And he was damned lucky he wasn’t dead. What if I’d hit his heart? What if that bolt of fire seared him to the bone? For that matter, who knew what else my erratic powers might have conjured instead of a ray of fire that evidently wasn’t as potent as it looked.

  I stood, but instead of inflicting more damage, tossed the rag back into the sink. “You think that just because you kissed me, you can walk in whenever you want?”

  With a drawn-out hiss, Kale uncurled his body and eased into an upright position. He lifted his left arm, tugged at the ruined shirt, and inspected his wound. “No harm done. Just a burn.”

  “Just a burn? There was blood—I saw it! You dropped like a rock.” Outrage, mixed with no small amount of fear for his safety, pitched my voice higher. “You’re out of your mind, you arrogant jerk. You’re lucky I didn’t kill you.”

  Nonplussed, he lifted his gaze, his expression stoically serious. “You can’t kill me.”

  Clearly he wasn’t understanding. I stuffed my fists onto my hips and glared. “And that’s supposed to make it okay? You have no right to just walk into my space. This is your fault, Kale. Not mine.”

  He pushed himself to his knees and tugged at my wrist until it slipped free. Holding onto it, he met my scowl, his gaze earnest. “Stop.”

  “I’m not stopping. You let yourself in. You scared the crap out of me. And I refuse to take the blame for nearly shish-kabobing you.” I tugged on my arm, uncomfortable with his absolute lack of irritation. Why wasn’t he furious? I’d hit him with fire. Fire, for God’s sake.

  And when in the hell had I learned to do that? It certainly wasn’t one of the spells we’d covered, or one I’d discovered on my own.

  “I’m fine.” Leveraging himself with my arm, he rose to his feet. “You’re pissed because you got scared.”

  Once again, my mouth dropped open. I spluttered something unintelligible.

  “You hate being scared,” he continued, closing the distance between us until less than
a foot remained.

  I pulled hard against his hand. “You’re full of shit. I’m pissed because you’re in my house uninvited.”

  “Then why is your face still ghost white? Admit it, Halle—you were, and still are, scared you hurt me.”

  If I had the ability to summon fire at will, I would have shot it from my glower. I managed to jerk free of his grasp and folded my arms over my breasts. I was not admitting that. He might be right. But confessing it would only say so much more than I ever wanted him to hear.

  “Why are you here?” I ground out between clenched teeth.

  As if nothing had transpired, he turned back to the stove and adjusted the pan on the burner. “You know, when you’re sleeping, there’s a certain peace about you that is damned hard to resist.”

  I blinked.

  In the next second, my thoughts that had threatened to scatter on the wind, clicked back into place. “You are not getting out of this with flattery.”

  “I’m not trying to get out of anything.” He cracked open an egg, dropped it into the pan. Grease popped and sizzled. “I’m just being honest. You were out like a light while I unpacked my groceries.” He gestured at a plain brown sack, still keeping his attention focused on the stovetop. “Didn’t stir at all. It struck me that if I stretched out beside you, I might touch that part of yourself you keep locked up tight. Do you have any idea how hard it was not to kiss you like that?”

  I blinked again. Unwanted warmth spread through my belly, and my damned heart stuttered. “Kale—”

  He turned to face me, one hand still holding the spatula. And in that moment, as he held me prisoner with a silent gaze, I felt his yearning. Felt it like a tangible thing stretching between us. He wanted me. It went beyond kisses and what would eventually follow the path of desire. Stretched into territory I had never given anyone, let alone a man. He wanted to know me. Wanted me to share myself with him honestly.

  I don’t know how I knew it—but I sensed that connection as sharply as I sensed the staccato beating of my heart.