The Redemption Series

by Melynda Price

  But how could she possibly begin to explain that to Liam? He wouldn’t understand…not without getting the wrong idea.

  “I know…I just feel bad…”

  Liam knelt beside her and laid his hand on her arm, stilling her scrubbing. “Olivia, what are you doing?”

  “I’m cleaning up this mess.”

  “That isn’t what I mean and you know it.”

  When she didn’t answer, he took her by the arms and lifted her, turning her to face him. A low-rumbling growl echoed across the room, warning Liam that Kyro didn’t appreciate him touching her. And that did exactly zero to improve his surly scowl.

  “That’s going to get old.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “Stop apologizing to me, Olivia. Why are you feeling so guilty?”

  Was that suspicion or accusation in his voice? Okay, so they were really going to do this. Not exactly the best timing, but then again, there was never a good time to have this conversation. They’d both been avoiding it since the night in the Everglades. “I feel bad, Liam, because I care about Haden and I know that hurts you.”

  Lines of tension bracketed his mouth, setting off the hard clench of his jaw. Emerald bled into his violet gaze, sparked with amethyst, telling her what he, himself, would probably never admit. He was jealous…and he was angry.

  Did he realize his grip on her arms had tightened?—not exactly painful, but possessively strong and unyielding. Even if he didn’t notice it, Kyro did. From the corner of her eye, she saw him rise with predatorial stealth. He kept his head low. His narrowed eyes began to glow with crimson fire. Liam didn’t even spare the hell-hound a glance. “Call off your dog, Olivia.” His low-warning voice was more chilling than if he’d yelled at her.

  That “your” held a distinctly discernible note of disproval. “Kyro, no,” she scolded, unable to force authority through the wavering tremor in her voice. “Go see Haden.”

  The massive beast reluctantly lumbered out of the living room. When he was out of sight, she reached up and cupped Liam’s cheek. A muscle twitched in his tightly clenched jaw. “I love you, Liam. My heart forever belongs to you, but it breaks for him—for the pain and suffering he’s endured at the hands of his father…”

  “Gahn is not his father, Olivia.”

  “Maybe not, but he’s the only father Haden has ever known.”

  “And this bothers you so much why? Why do you feel the need to right the wrongs done to him? You can’t fix him, Olivia.”

  Exhaling a sigh, she dropped her hand and turned to go back to cleaning the carpet. This wasn’t going well at all. Better to quit while they were ahead. It was just as she’d thought; he was never going to understand. Hell…she barely understood it herself. “Forget it, Liam.”

  Before she could kneel, he tugged her back around to face him. “I’m not going to forget it, Olivia. And you can’t expect me to understand if you can’t even explain it to me.”

  “That’s because it’s not easy, Liam. Haden…Haden is like that dog.” She pointed in the direction Kyro had gone. “He’s damaged and mistrusting. He’s mean and he’s vicious—but it’s all an act of self-preservation. If you show him a little kindness, he’ll be loyal unto death.”

  “Have you ever stopped to consider that Haden and that dog are mean and vicious because they’re killers? And neither one of them is worth your time or your heart.”

  With that, he let go of her and walked out. So, yeah, that went about as good as she’d expected.

  “Shouldn’t you be in Landaketa?”

  Liam glanced up from the whiskey he was nursing, while sitting in the corner of The Wrath. The bar was notorious for its heavily frequented demon population, and he was spoiling for a fight. “Shouldn’t you mind your own business?” Liam growled into his glass before tipping it back, welcoming the slow burn that stoked the fire already blazing in his veins.

  Balen slid into the chair across from him and stretched into a lazy sprawl. “Shouldn’t you be happier about finally getting what you’ve wanted after all these years?” By the lack of inflection in his friend’s voice, they might as well be discussing the weather rather than Liam’s life.

  “I don’t recall ever wanting my mate bonded to another male,” he snarked, draining the glass and slamming it down on the table. The sharp rap sounded off like an alarm, sending the waitress rushing over with another glass and the bottle of JD in her hand. She filled the glass still clutched tightly in his hand and set the empty in front of Balen, but the straight and narrow do-gooder angel covered the glass with his hand before she could fill it.

  “No thanks, a Dew is fine.”

  He looked back at Balen and felt a moment of grim satisfaction at having surprised the shit out of him. That placid calm exterior now scowled at him in return. “You can’t be serious?”

  “Well, I sure as hell can’t lie…” He raised his glass in salute to the truth—hell of a thing, that—and tipped back his whiskey.

  “No, but you can be mistaken. There’s no way she’s in love with that piece of shit.”

  “She doesn’t have to be in love with him, she just has to love him. And you forget, that ‘piece of shit’ had months to worm his way into her life, and her heart, while I was imprisoned for violating Universal Law and she had no memory of me. And that ‘piece of shit’ has also saved her life more times than I care to count.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s bonded to her. And you can’t believe a word that bastard says, anyway. Of course, he’s going to tell you he can feel her emotions.”

  “Yeah, that’s the thing. He hadn’t said shit about it. It’s her. She’s dreaming of him—vivid dreams where she’s experiencing his pain, feeling his emotions, and it’s tearing her apart. For some damn reason, she feels sorry for him.”

  “Oh fuck…” he muttered the very unBalen-like curse just as the waitress arrived at the table. She reached over to pour the Dew in his glass and he covered the rim again. “Sorry, Katie, I’ve changed my mind. I think I’ll take that Jack, after all.”

  As the woman headed back to the bar, Balen called after her. “You might as well leave the bottle,” then under his breath he muttered, “looks like we’re going to be here a while.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Several hours passed and Liam still hadn’t returned. Where in the hell could he have gone? After scrubbing the stain out of the carpet, Olivia went about setting the bathroom back to rights. The room was a disaster. The shower curtain had been torn half-off the rungs, and the tile floor was flooded with water. Little rivers followed the grout lines running against the baseboard and into the hall. A shampoo bottle lay in the bottom of the tub, cap open, oozing a pearly trail down the drain, and the body wash was crumpled. There was no help for the fractured bottle, so she tossed it into the trash with a heavy sigh.

  Dried blood stained the sink and splattered the wall closest to the shower. By the time Olivia got the room cleaned up, she was thoroughly exhausted, but her nerves stirred a restless energy that refused to let her rest. Now, with nothing left to do but stew and fret over Liam’s abrupt departure and prolonged absence, she decided to peek in on Haden and make sure he was still breathing. She hadn’t heard a sound from the spare bedroom since Liam hauled him in there. For all she knew he was lying in bed with a broken neck.

  Silently, she crept down the hall and stopped in the doorway. His eyes were closed. The shallow, but steady rise and fall of his partially exposed chest confirmed he wasn’t dead. She should really head back to the living room…

  She turned to leave when Haden’s eyes suddenly opened and locked on hers with a surprising amount of clarity. These weren’t the eyes of a half-dead male—too alert—too keen, they tracked her as she backed away from the door. How had he known she was there? She hadn’t made any sound. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he’d sensed her standing there.

  His hands were laced behind his head, stretching the confines of that pink robe to its limit. It hung o
pen, revealing his sculpted chest. The blanket draped just past his waist, barely covering what would no doubt be an indecent amount of male flesh. His tawny hair had dried in an Einstein disarray that gave him a boyish handsomeness that all but disappeared when he flashed her that infamous, predatory grin. How he could still manage to look not only gorgeous, but lethally dangerous, while wearing a pink bathrobe, she’d never know.

  “You’re awake,” she said, clearing her throat when her voice cracked. Kyro lifted his head from the foot of the bed.

  “I’ve been awake.”

  Great… So he’d probably heard her and Liam’s argument. “You look better. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m healing. I can breathe now that my rib’s not digging into my lung, so that’s progress, I guess.”

  “I suppose it is. How long will it take before you’re better?”

  His top lip curled in an arrogant grin. “In a hurry to get rid of me, already? Don’t worry. I should be on my feet tomorrow.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Well, kinda it was. “You must have heard Liam’s not thrilled to have you here.”

  “I heard.” His gaze bore into her with an intensity that made her shift uncomfortably. “I never thought I’d see the day you’d fight for me, Olivia.”

  “Yeah, well, I never thought I’d see the day you’d wear a pink bathrobe.” Olivia threw in a dig to derail the conversation. She didn’t like where this was heading.

  Haden chuckled at her barb and then promptly winced. “It was either that or nothing. But I’m not complaining. It smells like you.”

  Damn him… She purposefully ignored the comment, though it was more difficult to ignore the unbidden fluttering in her stomach, and the scorching heat sizzling her cheeks. “We weren’t fighting, by the way. We were communicating.”

  “Well, it sounded a lot like your communication partner stormed out the door.”

  “Why do you always have to be such an asshole?”

  “Because perhaps your lover is right and I’m not worth it.”

  So he had heard…every hurtful word… Olivia exhaled a regretful sigh and took a subconscious step forward before stopping herself. “He’s wrong, Haden. He just doesn’t know you like I do.”

  He shrugged. “Or perhaps he knows me better.”

  She refused to believe that. “Where have you been, Haden?”

  “Why do you care?”

  Ouch…

  “Listen, Olivia, you either want me or you don’t. You can’t have it both ways. It’s that simple.”

  Damn him…it wasn’t that simple. It wasn’t that simple at all. “I want you, Haden. Just, not in the context you want to have. You’re right, you don’t owe me any explanations, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want one. You were almost killed, for crissake! Where did you go? What happened to you?”

  “Doesn’t Liam tell you anything at all?”

  Haden’s bemusement tightened the knot of dread fisting in her gut. So he knew? Liam had known where Haden had been—what he was doing—all this time, and he didn’t tell her? Not even when she’d begun having those awful nightmares. Like a simmering cauldron, her temper began to boil. After everything, they’d been through, why was he still keeping secrets from her?

  Because he doesn’t trust you…

  “Perhaps he prefers to keep you in the bliss of your ignorance. But then one has to wonder, what else is he keeping from you?”

  Not helping, asshole…

  Olivia crossed her arms over her chest, and Haden’s pale green gaze boldly dropped. A wicked grin tugged at his top lip, but she was too pissed off right now to be rattled by his devious pose.

  “Come on, Olivia. Are you really so naive as to believe the High Court would just let Liam go? Or did you honestly think they’d welcome me into their fold with open arms?”

  The truth of his words crushed in on her like a lead weight. Perhaps she was a fool, because the answer to both those questions was, yes, she had. “But you’re part human…are you telling me they denied you forgiveness?”

  “No, they gave it—albeit unwillingly—and there was a hefty price tag attached to it. My humanity may have gifted me with salvation, Olivia, but my angelic bloodline has bought me a mortal’s lifetime of indentured servitude as penance.”

  Indentured servitude…to whom? Was that why he’d been injured?—protecting someone? The thought of him risking his life in service to someone else made her ill. The injustice of it riled her temper. Her heart broke for him. Dammit! It wasn’t fair! He deserved to finally be free—free of regret, free of vengeance, free of all the pain and suffering that poisoned his soul. And he never would be…not as long as he was forced to serve another and stuff his own emotions instead of dealing with them. He’d been owned since his birth, a servant of the Dark Court, and now he’d been forced to trade one master for another. This wasn’t right!

  “Where have you been, Haden?” The injustice of it all sharpened her voice as she demanded to know. “Who are you risking your life for? You could have been killed. I want to know who’s so damn important that the High Court is willing to throw your life away—.”

  “You are, Olivia. I’ve been indentured to you.”

  What? The air stalled in her lungs, her rant dying on her lips in a startled gasp. Surely she hadn’t heard him correctly.

  “You want to know where I’ve been? I’ve been to the ends of the earth, searching for Gahn. I’ve been in Hell hunting that elusive bastard, trying to find out what he’s planning next.”

  Olivia was speechless. She couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t be serious. This wasn’t happening…Haden?—her guardian? It couldn’t be true. Liam would have surely told her. Maybe he didn’t know.

  “And…?” Her whispered question was barely more than a strangled wheeze. “What did you discover?” Surely he must have discovered something to have returned to her in this damaged state.

  “Gahn knows about the baby. He’s planning to circumvent prophesy and overthrow the High Court, and he needs your child to do it. What I don’t know is how he intends to manage such a feat. But there’s no question, Olivia, you and your baby are in danger.”

  Her stomach dropped like it had at the Tower of Terror ride her dad had convinced her to go on when her parents took her to Disneyland for her thirteenth birthday. The feeling of free-falling made her knees threaten to buckle. Olivia grasped the doorway to steady herself.

  “As long as Gahn draws breath, he will never stop searching for you. And I vow, Olivia, that I will never stop hunting him. His death is the only way you’ll ever be safe. I have to kill him.”

  “Does Liam know?” Please say no, please say no…

  “Know what? That I’m your guardian or that Gahn is gunning for his kid?”

  “Both.”

  “He knows.”

  The room was starting to spin. Her heart thundered in her ears, muffling Haden’s damning words. Air couldn’t draw into her lungs fast enough. “I have to sit down,” she murmured, her shoulder bumping into the wooden trim. The pain hardly registered through the dizzying numbness pervading her body. Shock…her mind dully registered. Oh God, I’m going into shock…

  A worried scowl darkened the harsh lines of Haden’s handsome face. Muttering an oath, he moved to sit up, looking as if he intended to go to her, but he only made it upright before splinting his side and biting back a pained groan and a foul curse.

  “Come here, Olivia.” Keeping one hand against his ribs, he reached for her with the other.

  If she didn’t lie down soon, she was going to pass out. The couch was the next closest place to sit, but she didn’t think she could make it that far. She wondered if she’d make it the four steps to the bed.

  “Dammit, Olivia don’t make me getup.”

  Oh hell, she felt too faint to worry about propriety. The room verily spun with the truth of Haden’s revelations. Numbly, she stumbled toward the bed. Once she was within reach, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her down beside
him. Nausea sent her stomach rolling and she prayed it wouldn’t pitch a fit.

  “Put your feet up,” he demanded, scooting over to make room for her to lie down. “Take slow, deep breaths.”

  The moment her head hit the pillow, she was engulfed in the scent of black licorice. As she focused on her breathing, inhale…exhale…inhale…exhale…she pulled his pervading scent deeper into her lungs. Slowly, the panic began to ebb, and the rising nausea quelled.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he promised, his husky voice offering more comfort than she ought to be taking from him. With the tenderness she once thought him incapable of, he brushed her hair back, tucking it behind her ear.

  For the first time since Liam had come back into her life, she really didn’t believe it was going to be okay. She was angry at him for walking out on her today and furious with him for keeping the truth from her. Lies of omission were still lies as far as she was concerned, and Olivia couldn’t help but wonder what else he was keeping from her. Deep down, she’d been sensing for a while now that he was keeping something from her.

  She lay there several minutes with her eyes closed, mind racing as she waited for the dizziness to subside. Haden didn’t speak as his fingers slowly trailed through her unbound hair. His touch was gentle and far more familiar than it ought to be. She could feel the heat of his gaze boring into her as his exhaled breaths brushed her parted lips. He was close—too close, but if she kept her eyes closed, she could pretend she wasn’t aware of his too near presence.

  Olivia resisted the urge to moisten her lips with the tip of her tongue, an invitation she refused to offer, no matter how much a small traitorous part of her wanted to taste that breath so close to her lips.

  Deniability was key here. She wasn’t proud of it, and guilt hammered in her chest—or was that her thundering heartbeat? Stop! her mind told him when her lips failed to utter the words. Before she could correct her error and force herself to speak, Haden’s lips brushed over hers with a feather-light touch. The kiss was so light, she could almost convince herself it hadn’t happened, which she was desperately trying to do at the moment. Her hesitation backfired when Haden mistook her inactivity for permission.