by Julie Kenner
He gathers me up, and as he does, I feel a burst of static electricity that makes my entire body tingle and my hairs stand on end. It’s an odd but not unpleasant sensation, and I snuggle against his chest, feeling warm and happy. And, strangely, I feel protected, too.
Once we are settled on the couch, I look up at him again and see my own pleasure matched in his eyes. Pleasure, yes, but something else, too.
“Is something wrong?”
“Not a thing,” he says as he pulls me close and spreads Brayden’s quilt over us.
“Mmm.” I burrow against him. “This is wonderful, but I need to get dressed and get to rehearsal.”
“Stay with me.”
I laugh. “No can do, and you shouldn’t want me to, Mr. Investor.” I shift so that I’m on top of him. “But I promise to come back.”
“Juliet. Star-crossed lovers. It’s never been one of my favorites.”
I raise my brows. “No?”
He meets my eyes. “I don’t like unhappy endings.”
I brush a kiss over his lips. “I’m very glad to hear you say that. But right now, I really do have to go.”
I climb off him, but he takes my hand and tugs me back.
“Mal!” There’s laughter in my voice, but it dies when I see the expression on his face. “Something is wrong.”
“You can go to rehearsal, but I’m going to go with you.”
I frown, but I don’t argue. “Um, okay.”
“And when I say that I want you to stay with me, I mean that I want you to move in with me. That’s the easiest way to keep you safe.”
He’s sitting up now, and I move to sit next to him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You asked me last night what I do—the truth is, that I run a security company. Phoenix Security. Personal protection is high on our list of services. And we’ve been charged with keeping me safe.”
“Safe?” I scoot over to the far corner of the couch. “What are you talking about?”
“There are people who believe you have something they want. And they will kill you to retrieve it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I believe you,” he says. “The people who are after you don’t.”
“What people?”
“An organization. They call themselves the fuerie.”
“Fury?” I stand up, holding tight to the blanket to cover me, because right now I don’t want to be naked. “That’s crazy.”
“It’s the truth.”
“They’ll kill me? Your story doesn’t make sense. If they kill me, how would they get this McGuffin?”
“Christina, you have to believe me. I want to protect you from them—from everything. And you will be safest if you’re at my side.” His voice is so irritatingly calm and even that I want to scream. More than that, I want to cry. Because a moment that was perfect only moments ago has now gone completely off the rails.
“Dammit, Mal, do you have any idea how whacked this sounds?” I do. My mother saw conspiracies around every corner. And I’m sure she believed there were people who wanted me dead. The devil was inside me after all. “And come on, you’re guarding me? What are you, a charitable security company? Because I didn’t hire you. So who did?”
“That’s actually confidential. But I assure you it’s legitimate. Though not everyone at the company agrees that we should have taken your case.”
“Oh, of course not.” I try another tact. “I just left last night. You didn’t follow me. I grabbed a taxi and came home all by myself.”
“I had you tailed.”
“You what?”
He nods to the window. “I promise, you’ve been looked after.”
I head to the window.
“He’s gone,” Mal says. “I’m here.”
I draw in a breath, trying to decide what to do. Trying not to completely freak out.
“Look,” he says, his voice so reasonable I want to slap him. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. But you have a right to know. Either way, I want you to move in with me.”
“We barely know each other.”
“We know each other a lot more than barely.”
I frown. I’d thought we did. Now I wasn’t so sure.
“Check out the company,” he says, pulling a business card out of his wallet. “Go get dressed. Log onto a computer and check us out. Hell, Google us. We’re reputable. We’re the best. For that matter, Google me.” He pauses, and he looks so earnest that for a moment I believe his completely freakish tale. “I’ll take you to rehearsal, we can talk after, and we’ll go from there. Okay?”
I nod. I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do, but I do know that my world is shattering around me. Funny that it takes finding out that the guy I’m attracted to might be a complete psycho in order to figure out the extent of my feelings for him.
But I can’t think about that now. I need to just think about what to do next.
And although I know very little right now, one thing that I am certain of is that standing in the living room wearing nothing but a blanket isn’t part of my next move.
Chapter 11
‡
I pace the length of my bedroom, trying to decide what to do.
Last night it was shared energy and past lives, and now assassins? That’s insane—I mean, I know crazy, and right now I’m staring it in the face.
My heart twists and I force myself not to cry. Because dammit, this was a man I think I could have crossed my line for. I could have dated him. Fallen for him.
I could have given him my heart and trusted him not to break it.
But if I almost gave my trust to a man who is just as fucked up as my mother was, then what the hell does that make me?
As crazy as she was.
Fuck.
I need to move. Need to just get out of here.
Hell, I need to run.
Maybe not forever—I’m not that much of a coward. But I need time to think. To figure out what I’m going to do.
To figure out how I can push him away. How I can end this thing between us even before it has really started.
And—oh, god—I have to figure out how I can continue being Juliet when the very Romeo I’m running from is one of the owners of the goddamn theater.
Not only crazy, but a stalker, too.
Christ, I am so fucked.
Except I don’t want to believe it.
Hell, I don’t believe it. Not any of it. Not that some bad guys are after me. Not that Malcolm is crazy. Not that he’s stalking me or would want to hurt me or that he would ever do anything other than protect me.
I know him.
I hitch in a breath as a tear trickles down my cheek.
Dammit, I know him. And, yes, despite everything, I trust him.
The problem is that I don’t know myself. Do I trust him because I see the true core of him and know that he would never cause me harm? Or do I trust him because I’m deluded and have, like my mother before me, constructed a fantasy world in which I now live. And which will, if I’m not careful, end up killing me.
I don’t know. Right now, I feel like I don’t know anything.
And so I give in to the urge to run and hope that as my feet pound the pavement and my lungs draw in the air, that maybe somehow I’ll find an answer, if not inside myself, then out there in the world.
*
Mal sipped a cup of coffee while he waited, trying to keep his nerves steady.
The stakes were rising—and while he’d loved the sensation of feeling her come in his arms, the underlying current of energy pulsing through the weapon had put a definite strain on the encounter. And forced him to show part of his hand before he wanted to.
But whatever it took to get her to move in with him. Because the weapon was too close to the surface right now. And if he wanted to justify keeping her alive, he had to make sure that he kept the energy at bay.
Thank goodness he’d been right about having more
control. He’d been able to draw out her energy. To dampen the effect so that the weapon settled even as she did.
She’d been more limp and sated than she was probably used to after sex, but with luck she’d simply write that off to his skill as a lover.
He half-smiled. How was that for making lemonade out of lemons?
But in truth, the situation wasn’t without its possibilities. And while keeping the weapon tamped down had to be his priority, he already knew that the way to do that was to teach her control. To keep her on the edge, teasing her, but not letting her come. Not until she could control it so specifically that she came on his command—a command he would give only when he was ready to draw the energy from her and keep the weapon safe.
He took another sip as he considered, feeling himself grow hard at the erotic possibilities. Hell, he could imagine her, bound to his bed, a willing pupil to his tutelage.
Then again, they could simply not have sex at all. But that was an unacceptable approach for several reasons, not the least of which being that he didn’t think it would work. Now that he was with her—now that they were both so hyperaware of each other—basic, pure, primal desire would take over. They could try abstinence, but he doubted it would work. And if she was sexually frustrated and did anything to relieve that stress when he wasn’t around—
He shuddered.
No. He fully intended to be with her 24/7 until the weapon was dealt with.
And if they needed to work off some sexual tension to make sure she didn’t go nuclear unexpectedly, then he would enthusiastically rise to the task.
Hell, they’d had so little time to explore these bodies before she was taken from him so many millennia ago. Now, not only did they have the time to explore, but they had the need of it. Because her passion was tied to the weapon, and teaching her control and submission would be not only a pleasure but a necessity.
Control.
He pictured Christina beneath him, submitting to his will, learning to control her own pleasure until he gave her permission for release.
Trusting him.
They both needed that, he thought. After so many years of fear and heartbreak, they both needed to know that she trusted him completely. And she needed to know that he would always take care of her.
They could do this. Together, they would make this plan work.
No more rising energy. No more pulsing danger.
No more fear that it would be Alexandria all over again, and—
Oh, shit.
The weapon’s energy had risen. Yes, he’d tamped it down. Yes, he’d stopped it.
But there had been a danger.
And Asher would surely have felt it.
And, dammit, so would the fuerie.
Fuck.
Even now, Ash was probably cornering Liam and pleading his case that Christina had to be destroyed.
He glanced at his watch, then frowned. “Christina,” he called out. “We need to make a stop before rehearsal. Come on. We need to go.” He kept his voice calm, but he wanted to get out of there. If the fuerie were coming, he wanted to be in his own house, with its protections and weapons. Not ten floors up in an unfamiliar building.
He waited for her response, his frown deepening when none came.
“Christina?”
Fuck.
He started down the hallway when his phone beeped, signaling a text.
It was from Dante. And all it said was 911.
Their signal—and it meant he’d sensed the presence of fuerie.
Without knocking, Mal pushed open the door to her bedroom.
“Christina!” he shouted. But it didn’t matter.
There were fuerie coming—and she’d gone out alone.
*
I burst out of the service entrance at a dead run.
The truth is I don’t know where I’m going—especially since it’s myself I truly want to run from.
But just the sensation of moving seems to help. I just want to get away. To escape.
And as I race around the building toward the street, I think that maybe I should just go to a movie. Find a dark theater and sit in it and eat popcorn all day.
Not a bad idea, actually, and I’m trying to remember where the closest theater is when I round the corner and stop short. Because right in front of me is a very round little man. And he has a face that seems made of fire.
I skid to a stop, then turn back the way I came. There’s something familiar about this moment, as if I’d seen him before. But I don’t stop to ponder that feeling because when you see someone with a face of flame, you don’t think—you run. And now that I’m heading the opposite direction, I’m picking up speed.
Not enough, though, because I feel the flame man’s hand close around my upper arm and yank me backwards.
I stumble, then fall on my ass even as someone unseen grabs the flame man and tugs him into the shadows.
“Mal!” I scream his name, only realizing as the name passes my lips that my savior isn’t Mal at all.
But I know this man, this savior.
The copper hair. The piercing eyes.
Asher.
“Thank you,” I say. “Oh, god, thank you.”
But he is paying no attention to me. Instead, he takes what looks like a switchblade from his pocket. Only when he extends the knife, I see that it’s not a short blade at all. Instead, it’s the length of a sword and seems to be made of forged light.
And as I remain sprawled on the ground, he takes his sword or lightsaber or whatever it is and stabs it through the heart of the fallen flame man—who immediately combusts, leaving nothing to mark the moment other than a small pile of gray dust.
Apparently the jury is in—I really have gone completely insane.
I scramble to my feet, wanting nothing more in that moment than to get inside—to get to Mal.
“If you get them through the heart, they disintegrate,” Asher says conversationally. “Anywhere else, and you have to deal with a body.”
I gape at him, not at all certain what I should say to that. “Um.”
I clear my throat and try again. “I—Mal’s upstairs. I—we should go. We need to tell him.” I need to hear from him that this is real and I’m not crazy.
“Wait,” Asher says.
I hesitate. My gut is telling me to run, but Asher just saved me from the flame man, so I figure I owe him at least some basic courtesy.
“Did Mal tell you? Who that guy was, I mean. Did he tell you who was after you? Did he tell you why?”
I lick my lips. I’m starting to get the feeling that I’m not crazy. Which is good.
But I’m also afraid that I’m in the middle of something very, very strange.
And that part is bad.
“Christina?” Asher presses. “Did he tell you?”
I shove my hands into the pockets of the jeans I’d put on. “Just that his security company is trying to protect me. That some group is trying to kidnap me. But he hasn’t said why. He said it’s too long a story.”
“No,” Ash says. “It’s not long at all. They want you because you’re a weapon.”
I don’t have time to ask what the fuck he’s talking about before he continues.
“It’s too dangerous to keep you around, Christina. Mal’s fucked this one up, and leader or not, I can’t let him risk the world. And I’m sorry, because I know you don’t remember it, but you and I used to be pretty good friends. But you’ll come back. Mal will see you again. And the odds are damn good that you won’t remember any of this.”
I shake my head, because I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about.
At the same time, though, I take a step backward. Because while I don’t understand what he means, I’m pretty damn sure that it doesn’t end in warm fuzzes for me.
I only get one step when he extends that freakish sword again.
I burst forward, drawing on all my strength, but I’d seen how fast he moved with the flame man, and I know that there’s n
o way I’ll get away from him.
A wave of terror crests over me, so potent I can taste it like bile on my tongue. The fear is hot and boiling. Like it’s not only going to fill me, but it’s going to explode out of me, wild and red and utterly dangerous.
The weapon.
Oh, dear god, he was right. It’s not fear that I’m feeling, not entirely. It’s the weapon, too. And I have no idea how to control it, and—
I scream as I see a sword arcing through the air toward me. And for just a split second, I think that maybe it’s a good thing, because if the weapon inside me gets out—and it will, because I don’t know how to control it, and—
—And then Asher’s sword falls to the ground even as his mouth hangs open in surprise.
I watch, confused, as he topples to the ground, and the next thing I see through the building red haze is Mal rushing toward me, shouting for me to back it down, back it down!
I can’t. I don’t know how!
But then he’s holding me, and the redness is fading, the wildness sliding back inside.
It’s Mal—he’s doing this. He’s holding me. Touching me.
He’s saving me.
I feel a tear trickle down my cheek, then taste salt when Mal presses his lips to mine in a gentle kiss.
When he pulls away, I nod toward the circle of fire that is consuming Ash’s body. I’m not scared or bewildered. I know that it is phoenix fire. That it will destroy and regenerate.
That Asher will be back.
I tilt my head to look up at Mal through a veil of tears. “You didn’t kill me this time.”
I see the surprise on his face. “You remember?”
And with a shock, I realize that, yes, I do. “Some of it, at least. It’s strange.” I frown as I try to explain. “It’s like remembering a movie that you mostly slept through. I’ve got bits and pieces, but not the whole thread. And it doesn’t feel like the memory belongs to me. I know the memories are mine, but I’m Jaynie, too. And everyone else I’ve been born as over the years.” I frown. “It’s a lot of memories. I don’t know if I can keep them all.” I clutch his hand. “What if I lose them? What if I forget?”
“You might,” he says, drawing me close and wrapping his arms around me. “You have before. But it doesn’t matter. I love all of you. Christina, Jaynie, and everyone in between. And I will always keep you safe. We will keep you safe.”
