“You think this will settle down once we turn over Crowley?” James asked.
Scott rocked back in his chair. “Jesus, I hope so.”
Kat walked into the living room with two glasses of ice-cold blood. She handed one to Julius.
He tipped his face up, drawing the glass closer, no doubt inspecting the contents from beneath his bandage. “What the hell is this?”
“Dinner.”
“With ice? We can’t—”
She rolled her eyes. She might be new to vampirism, but she wasn’t dense. “The ice cubes are frozen blood, not water.”
His lips parted.
“What?” She sat on the couch, tucking her legs beneath her. “Makes me feel more human.”
“And here I didn’t think I’d be able to think about anything but what happened upstairs, but you’ve piqued my curiosity. Have you always been so . . . odd?”
She grabbed the closest throw pillow and hurled it at him.
He lifted his glass out of the way and swatted it aside. “Come on, you have to admit you don’t conform.”
“I conform.”
“To what?”
Her mouth opened. Closed. She took a sip of her drink. “I follow the human’s laws and the coven’s rules.”
“Which is, obviously, why you have me hidden away here.”
Okay, so maybe she was currently breaking both the laws and the rules, but this was the first time. She lifted her chin. “I conform to the Hippocratic oath of medicine. . . . I help—”
“You’re sleeping with one of your patients.” He flashed her a grin.
She snapped her mouth closed.
“You dress conservative—long skirts and dresses that cover you up, but then don’t wear panties.”
Her face heated. “Only when I’m at home.”
“Your house is impeccable except for the living room which seems almost purposefully kept a disaster.”
“Mother hated messes.”
“I have the sense that you’re a good witch—someone to give Glinda a run for her money—”
She gasped. He made her sound like some one-dimensional Mary Sue!
“—but you have me hidden away like some dirty little secret.”
“I told you, you’re innocent.” The words strained between her clamped jaw.
He scoffed. “And you’re getting upset with me when I’m pointing out things I like—or at least I find interesting—about you.”
She stared.
“I want to know why you do the weird things you do. That’s all I’m fishing for.”
Her face flushed again. “I’m not weird.”
“Weirder still that you don’t know how weird you are.” He rubbed his chest. He’d been doing that a lot the last few days. “Most people would’ve left me to the sun.” He took a long sip of his drink.
She folded the hem of her skirt into neat little lines. “You’re my mate.”
“And what, that’s important to you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
They always seemed to come back to this one little detail. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Mates, when they’re not ready to bond can be ruthless to each other.”
Was that why he didn’t trust her? Had she been ruthless in a past life? Had she hurt him when she’d known him last? The question simmered on her tongue, she wanted to ask, but she feared the answer. “Mates can be beautiful when they are ready to bond.”
His lips twitched. “The eternal optimist. Come on, tell me.”
The ‘I’m your mate’ he left unsaid, but it still hung between them.
“You were right. I wanted someone to love me. To care.”
His expression sobered. “Listen, I shouldn’t have said—”
“But you were wrong, thinking that anyone would do. I didn’t want anyone, I wanted my mate. I wanted you.”
He stilled. “And now that you’ve met me?”
“You’re a pain in my butt.”
His lips twitched. “At least you’re honest.”
She met his gaze. “I’m glad you didn’t burn in the sunlight.”
He leaned forward and snagged her ankle in his hand. Drew her foot toward him until it rested in his lap. “Are you?” He dug his thumbs into the arch of her foot.
She moaned. Nodded. Pressed her lips together as the urge to tease him back rose. “Mm. I like the way you kiss.”
His hands stilled. All his muscles flexed and he got that same menacing look he’d had in the kitchen yesterday. The same look he got in the bedroom right before he kissed her senseless and made love to her until she was boneless.
“None of that now.” She shook her finger. “You’re resting. You can either sit here and talk to me or I can knock you out and drag you back to bed.”
One tawny brow rose. “You wouldn’t.” He shook his head, his hand closing around her ankle as if to haul her closer. “You wouldn’t do anything that might hurt me.”
“I’d use Magic and make it painless,” she rushed her threat out before he could drag her into his lap. Once there, she’d lose every good intention she had. As soon as his mouth settled over hers, she’d get lost in his kiss.
He pressed his lips together.
“Tell me more about Julian.” She nudged his jean-clad leg with her bare foot.
He kneaded her arch. “He was a sickly little shit when we were young. I was always running a mile a minute, unable to sit still for long which aggravated our parents to no end.”
Attention Deficit Disorder, maybe? Even now, he seemed to have a hard time keeping himself still. He changed subjects often. Constantly wanted to move around. The only time he seemed at peace was when he painted. “Did you get lost in the shuffle while they concentrated on keeping Julian well?”
“No. See, I was the second twin and our parents were a superstitious lot. Our whole village was. So, they took good care of me so Julian could use me when the time came.”
Use him? Her brows drew together. “I don’t understand.”
“When we were born, it was common knowledge that only the first twin had a soul. They were special enough, important enough, that they were born with a second body should the first fail.”
“Shut up. No way is that true.”
He shrugged. “It was what people believed. I could’ve ended up being born into a culture where they killed the second twin. At least in my village, the second twin was cared for.”
For the benefit of the firstborn. “Praise Gaia for that.”
“Whenever he’d get sick . . . which seemed to be every other week—I think he had asthma or some kind of lung infection—they’d tie me down in the bed next to his to make sure his soul could find me should his body die.”
That was awful. To do that to an impressionable child, to raise them believing they were an extra body for someone else. She couldn’t imagine what that might have been like.
He glanced at her. “What? It wasn’t as bad as it sounded. I would’ve hung out with him anyway—though I would’ve preferred not to be tied down. I think they were afraid I’d get bored and wander off.” He shrugged. “Which I probably would’ve done.”
“Didn’t it bother you, thinking you didn’t have a soul?”
He used the palm of his hand to scrub his bicep. “I never much believed in God or souls or heaven—none of it ever made sense to me, so I guess I never had any buy-in to their way of thinking.”
“Did Julian live?”
“Yeah. Eventually, he got stronger. By the time we were in our teens, he rarely got sick enough to take to his bed.”
“What was he like then?”
“A bit entitled, but otherwise, pretty cool. He treated me like a person.” He frowned and rubbed his ribs under his arm. “He didn’t argue when I decided it was time to leave home and move on.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
She straightened. “What?”
He let his head fall back onto th
e backrest. “Come on, Kat. The life-expectancy back then was like thirty. Nobles got married as soon as they hit double-digits.”
That didn’t make it right. “Fine.” She smoothed her hands down her dress. “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I have a hard time imagining that kind of life. So at the ripe-old-age of fourteen what did you do?”
“Both of us could blacksmith like our father. We had grand dreams of setting up shop in another village.” He laughed, shaking his head. “The best we could find was an apprenticeship—the lady of the castle liked us. So our days were spent with an old man who resented the hell out of us and our nights . . . .” His brows waggled above the bandage. “We both got one hell of an education.”
She stared. “At fourteen? That’s . . . that’s . . . .” She couldn’t think of a word vile enough.
“Mid-life?” His jaw flexed.
Yeah, if people only lived to their thirties, that would be mid-life. “Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “How long did you stay?”
He grinned. “Until her husband found out.”
She threw another pillow at him and he caught it despite the bandage covering his eyes.
“It was nice while it lasted. Good food. Nice beds . . . when it was my night inside, anyway. The lord, he kept his men trained. I loved to sit up on the battlements and watch the knights. Even made swords for me and Julian while we were there. When we got chased out, we were older. Armed. I had new dreams of becoming a knight.”
The Beacon, the Shadow, and the Knight. “You are a knight.”
“No.” He ran the heel of his hand down his thigh, scrubbing. “There were rules. Lineages. Fees. Equipment requirements. We were low-born, so no one would take us. We ended up becoming mercenaries, instead—knights of the lowest order, Julian used to tell people.”
Maybe he wasn’t the one. What if all of this was for nothing? What if she spent this week with him, falling in love with him, only to find out he didn’t have any connection at all to the Original? “You never became a knight?”
He grinned. “We called ourselves knights—to piss those holier-than-thou silver-plated-bastards off. Even had this code of honor we’d rattle off—completely off-color, of course.”
“What was your code?” No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she changed her mind. “No, don’t. I don’t want to know. I’ve run out of pillows, all I have left within reach are books and my glass.”
The low rumble of his laugher rolled over her.
Incorrigible.
“God, I miss him.”
“How did he die?”
He sobered. “We were hired by local authorities in Cornwall to take out a group of what they considered to be brigands. They were halting all traffic in and out of the city and the body count started adding up. We should have asked more questions, but the coin was too good to pass up. We took the job. It ended up being a coven of rogue vampires and that was our last job as humans.”
“That must have come as a shock.”
“You could say that. I dealt with transformation better than Julian. He couldn’t accept it. He became depressed and annoyingly whiny, but we stuck together, learned to exist without sunlight. Found ways to use our mercenary talents to get what we needed to survive. Every night seemed to get a little easier for me—it was weird, all I had to do was ask for what I wanted and people seemed more than happy to accommodate me—but Julian, he kept getting worse.
“I couldn’t stand him anymore. I snapped at him one day, told him if he was so damn unhappy to take himself off a cliff and end it.”
“Oh, no.” He was a mesmerist.
“Oh, yes.”
“I kept walking, expecting him to be right behind me. It never occurred to me that he would . . . .” He shrugged. “But he did. That’s how I discovered our talent.”
“I’m sorry, Jules.”
He shrugged and looked away. She’d almost assume him indifferent to the tale if not for the muddiness in his aura. He seemed to need a minute to collect himself so she pulled her foot away from him and stood. When she paused to take his empty glass, he pulled her down onto his lap.
“Julius Crowley! You’re supposed rest. Relax. Go paint. Or meditate.” He kept rubbing at his skin. First his chest, then his leg. Now he was leaving a red mark on his arm. She couldn’t let it go any longer. Something was obviously bothering him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Oh, stubborn male! “Then you don’t need—”
She got up and he tugged her back down, anchoring her to him. “Would you believe I have an uncontrollable need for contact?”
Her whole body stilled and her colors flickered, changing from greens and pinks to blues and yellows. She set the glasses down on the end table. “From you? Yeah, I’d believe that.”
“Why?” He shook his head. “I’m trying to understand why I feel the way I do. I don’t remember being like this before. Like I want someone to touch me. . . . ” He dragged her hand up to his face and pressed into her palm. “But then it’s overwhelming when they do.”
“I imagine you were alone a lot. Probably almost always.”
Jesus, he guessed he must’ve been on the outs with the Guardians, but it must have been for longer than he thought. “For how long?”
She chewed her lip. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’ve been trying to be so careful not saying anything that might force back memories, or taint your memories when they come.”
“Then tell me what being alone has to do with what I’m feeling.”
She flattened her palms against his chest. “Studies have been done on prisoners of war who’ve been held in solitary confinement. They have similar experiences. Desperately needing contact, but their nerves aren’t used to touch anymore. Everything feels . . . more to them. It tends to cause . . . well, a variety of psychological disorders, actually.”
“So maybe I am crazy.” That didn’t bode well considering he had to pass the coven’s little sanity test.
“You’re not crazy.” She rubbed her cheek against his. “We’ll get through it. A lot of this will fade with time.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
She pulled back to study him. “Then I guess I’ll have to touch you a lot.”
God, would he like that. She made the spiders go still. “It wouldn’t bother you?”
“Touching you?” A smile laced her question. She stroked her hand over his shoulders and down his arms. “I think I can get used to it.”
“But you’re not used to it, are you? Not now.” She always seemed a tad unsure. A little hesitant at first.
“Mother didn’t do displays of affection, nor did she like witnessing them.”
“Is that why you ran away when I reached for you in the kitchen?”
Her colors flickered to a muddy red. “What were you going to do, when you reached for me?”
“Kiss the stubbornness out of you.”
She traced her finger down his Adam’s apple. “You were upset, so you wanted to touch.”
Yeah. He’d damn near been crawling out of his own skin. He knew if he could just get her arms around him, he’d be okay. “And I wanted you to quit asking questions I didn’t know how to answer.” He put the slightest of pressure against her side and she leaned in until they were nose-to-nose.
“I’m sorry I left.” She kissed the corner of his mouth.
“I’m sorry I scared you.” He sealed his lips to hers and eased his hand up her skirt.
“Jules, I can’t.”
Shit. He froze. Just because she let you make love to her once didn’t mean—
“It’s not you . . . I want to . . . .” She shrugged as her face heated. “I’m a little . . . tender.”
The darkness inside him churned. “I hurt you?”
“Stop that.” She swatted him on his arm. “I already said you didn’t.”
He arched his brow.
“It’s been a while.”
What the hell was she talking about? He d
idn’t want to say the wrong thing, so he waited.
“Like three years.”
He frowned. No way in hell were they talking about the same thing. Three years without sex? Was that even possible?
“When a woman doesn’t have sex for a while, the first time or two . . . chafes a little. Okay?”
His fingers twitched at her waist as his gaze dropped. Chafes?
“If you lift my skirt to look, I won’t be responsible for what I do to you.”
Shit. Caught again. He cleared his throat. “Is that why you don’t want to sit with me?”
She buried her face in the crook of his neck. “Yes, because when I’m this close to you, I want you inside me again.”
Good God, she was killing him. He wanted nothing more than to be buried in her sweet body. “That’s okay. We’ll talk. Get to know each other.”
“For real?”
“Yeah.”
“Why are you rubbing your skin raw?”
“It’s the . . . .” He shook his head. Yeah, this conversation was a one-way ticket out of her bed for life.
“Tell me.” She kissed the spot on his neck he’d been attacking a second ago. Nipped his chin. “You were doing the same thing before you cut yourself.”
“That was different . . . I was remembering something. . . . ” Shit! “Okay, look, don’t freak out and go all mama hen on me, okay?”
She nodded.
“I feel like something’s crawling under my skin. Like tiny spiders pricking my nerves. I know they’re not real.” Please, God, don’t let them be real. “I mean there’s nothing there, right?” He tipped his head to the side and she rubbed her palm over his neck.
“Nope.”
They weren’t real. It was all in his fucking head. He was mental.
“Maybe I can help.” She chewed on her lip. “I read an article once on anxiety—”
“I’m not anxious,” his denial came out harsher than he’d intended. He sighed. “I’m not . . . I’m an assassin. A mercenary before that. I’ve got nerves of steel.” He let his head fall back onto the backrest and caught a glimpse of her lips quirking up at the corners. “You call me anxious and now you’re laughing at me.”
“Come here.” She stood and tugged at his hand until he got up.
The Knight: The Original's Trilogy - Book 3 Page 21
