by Anne Hope
Just then, the pigeon fussed. She tried to mask the sound by crumpling the plastic bag of sunflower seeds she held, but it was pointless. Her father had heard, and if he wasn’t angry before, he was now. With a reproachful glare directed her way, he headed to the closet and opened it. Lia’s breath snagged in her throat.
He bent at the waist and retrieved the pigeon, then walked toward her with the bird firmly secured in his grasp. The pigeon tried to wriggle free, but her father only tightened his hold on it. A pitiful coo issued from its beak when it realized it was trapped.
“Why is there a bird in your room?” His eyes latched on to hers, and she saw it again, that spark of fear. “What do you plan to do with it?”
Dread coiled in her belly, blacker than a cockroach. “I’m going to set it free. Please don’t hurt it.” Desperation strangled her voice.
“You’re after its light, aren’t you? Even now it calls to you.”
She had no idea what he was talking about. Half the time, her father made no sense. The madness was back, a faithful shadow that dogged his every step. “Fine.” Defeat and revulsion dulled his tone. “Take it.”
He snapped the bird’s neck.
A scream scratched its way up Lia’s throat, remained trapped in her mouth as a sob expanded to choke her. In what looked like a gesture of surrender, her father tossed her one and only friend at her feet, limp and broken. Its baby feathers reflected the light, a rainbow of colors glistening like raindrops in the sun. Pain tore through her. She closed her eyes, hurting so bad she couldn’t even cry.
“I’m through trying to change you.” Her father looked almost as broken as the bird. He left her then, alone with her misery, to suffer the torrent of unshed tears that burned beneath her lids.
Thunder roared outside the window, drummed on the walls, pummeled her brain…
Lia jackknifed in bed, the violent beat of her heart threatening to break a rib. The unshakable urge to weep assailed her. Thunder shook her home again, and for a second she wondered if she was still trapped in the dream. Then she realized the noise was coming from her front door.
Still dazed, drowning in a sea of memories that didn’t belong to her, she slipped into her white silk robe and went to answer. “Who’s there?” No woman in her right mind would let a stranger into her home in the middle of the night.
“It’s Jace.” The voice was strained but familiar.
With eager fingers, she unlatched the door and invited him in. He practically tumbled through the door, hugging his arm in pain. Alarm chased the fog from her brain. “What happened to you?”
Sweat beaded on his face as his knees buckled beneath him. With admirable stamina, he labored to stay on his feet. “Fight.” He grunted. “Got cut.”
“Come. Let me check you out.” She slipped an arm around his waist and guided him to the bedroom, where she encouraged him to stretch out on the bed.
Finally giving in to weakness, he dug his head into the pillow. She pried his fingers from his arm and examined his injury. No blood leaked, but puckered flesh surrounded a third-degree burn. Red-rimmed, yellow-centered blisters had sprung to cover a large segment of his skin.
“This is no cut. It’s a burn. A real nasty one. What’d you do? Crawl out of a burning building?”
The sound he made was half laugh, half sob. “Something like that.”
She dashed to the kitchen and returned with a bowl of ice water and a clean compress, then proceeded to cool down the wound. “You need to go to the hospital.”
He clutched her arm, surprising her with his strength despite his ragged appearance. “No. If you can’t treat me here, then I’ll leave.” He started edging off the bed.
She shoved him back down. “You’re not going anywhere in this condition. I think you’re in shock. Your pulse is racing. Your skin’s clammy. Any minute now you could pass out. Then there’s no telling what’ll happen to you.” Determination coursed through her veins and emboldened her. “I watched you die once. I won’t do it again.”
His mouth curled in a tight smile. “You’re real sexy when you’re bossy, you know that?”
“Shut up and let me patch you up.” She applied a burn spray to his raw, fire-eaten flesh. “What is it with you and trouble? Are you an adrenaline junkie? Do you like pain?”
He flinched as she began bandaging his arm. “Only when you’re the one inflicting it.”
With a roll of her eyes, she loosened the wrappings to ensure the wound could breathe. “We have to keep an eye on the burn, make sure it doesn’t become infected. Maybe I should prescribe antibiotics, just to be sure.”
“Don’t bother.”
She didn’t like the resigned look that raced across his face. “What’s going on with you, Jace?”
He choked on a snicker. “Wish I knew.”
Against her will, her fingers crept over his chiseled body to settle on his cheek. He closed his eyes and relaxed against the pillow, soothed by her touch. “I can smell your scent on the sheets,” he whispered. “So subtle. So sweet. Smells like home.”
Her heart gave her lungs a swift kick, knocked the breath right out of her. He must have heard it because his lids sprang open. Stormy eyes met and held hers. “The only time I feel normal is when I’m with you,” he confessed. “You’re the only one I can trust.”
Warmth journeyed through her, thick and cloying, like melted chocolate. “Then why did you run off today? Or should I say, how?”
He didn’t answer. His eyes drifted shut again, the gesture accented by a sigh. “Lie with me. Please.”
Temptation was a dangerous drug, potent and dizzying. “I don’t think—”
“I won’t put the moves on you. I promise. I just need to feel you beside me.”
His vulnerability battered her resolve, made the walls she’d erected around herself crumble in a pile of dust at her feet. For the first time in her adult life, Lia allowed impulse and desire to rule her. She slipped into bed beside him, draped an arm over his hard chest and let his unsteady heartbeat lull her spirit. Completeness washed over her, a sense of rightness that baffled and exhilarated.
He crowded in closer, resting his chin on the crown of her head. His heat enveloped her in a sheltering blanket that banished her loneliness and beat all her doubts into submission.
This is what it feels like to belong, she thought.
“Know what you mean,” he said, right before the anesthetizing haze of sleep swept in to claim him.
“Know what you mean.” Those words had hovered on the edge of Lia’s consciousness all night, tormenting her. Had Jace actually answered her thoughts?
Probably just a coincidence. But what if it wasn’t? What if something had happened to him the night he’d been stabbed? She’d heard accounts like these before, patients who were resuscitated claiming to suffer from visions or sudden psychic abilities. She’d always discounted these occurrences as the delusional ravings of people who’d dueled with death and won. People whose minds were perhaps deprived of oxygen long enough to cause imperceptible damage to the brain. Some things couldn’t be explained, even with the most advanced medical equipment. Still, what she would’ve given to get Jace on that MRI table…
He wasn’t in bed beside her. He’d slipped out of the room so quietly, she hadn’t heard him walk away, which was quite an accomplishment because she was a very light sleeper. A sense of loss she couldn’t explain swamped her, so she shot out of bed and went in search of him. He couldn’t have run off. Not again. Not before she could sort this out.
She found him in the kitchen, sitting at the table, staring at his joined hands. Relief flooded her veins. “I thought you left.”
“I considered it.” He refused to meet her gaze. “But I’ve got nowhere else to go.”
Heat again. Whenever she was near him, warmth spread around her heart like a pocket of sunlight. Crazy. Total insanity was what this was. Jace Cutler was all wrong for her. Hadn’t she seen what he’d done to Cassie? Even worse, her siste
r was still hung up on the guy.
“I can find out where you live, if that’ll help—”
“Can’t stay there.” He shook his head, ran his fingers through his hair until it stood out in uneven tufts that begged to be smoothed out. “First place they’ll look.”
Now it was her turn to be frazzled. “Who?”
“Don’t know. Them. The things that are after me.”
“Jace, you’re not making any sense. Let me take you back to the hospital, run that MRI—”
“No.” The finality in his voice silenced her. “If you don’t want me here, I’ll go. But there’s no goddamn way I’m going back to that hospital.” There was steel in his tone and a passion that bordered on fury.
He must’ve noticed the startled look in her eyes, because a mouthful of air whooshed out of him. “Sorry. I’m not myself today. Whoever the hell that is.”
Compassion prevailed over nerves, and she approached him. “At least let me take a look at that wound, make sure it’s not infected.”
He nodded noncommittally. Pulling a chair beside him, she prepared to help him the only way she could. Her spine tingled at the thought of what she would find when she peeled off the bandage. His was the strangest burn she’d ever seen. “Don’t move,” she ordered, then proceeded to unwrap the gauze.
Her hand suddenly stilled, surprise and disbelief lancing through her. The burn had healed. His skin was pink and virtually intact, marred only by a thin, silver scar where the wound had been. She traced the mark with her finger. An electric charge instantly traveled up her arm and shook her body. “I think I’m hallucinating.”
He slanted a glance at his arm, reached over to touch it. His fingers grazed hers, and the heat increased tenfold. “Then we’re both trapped in the same nightmare.”
“I don’t know how to help you,” she voiced honestly. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“Just don’t bail on me.” A river of pain, wrapped in a silent plea, swam in his eyes.
She felt him then, the boy in her dreams—felt his isolation, his self-loathing, the soul-ravaging desire to be something he wasn’t—and she knew beyond a doubt the flashbacks she was having belonged to him. Somehow, in that one moment when death had stood vigil between them, their spirits had merged—undeniably, irrevocably. Whether they liked it or not, they were connected, linked by an energy they couldn’t see or touch or taste but was more real than anything either of them had ever known before.
And it scared the crap out of her.
“Why you?” Emotion strangled her voice. “Of all the men out there, why did it have to be you?”
She didn’t need to explain; he understood. Need flared in his gaze, and for one endless heartbeat she was sure he was going to kiss her. His hands rose to bracket her face. His head fell forward. The world held its breath…or maybe it was just her. Some primal intuition told her that once his mouth covered hers, there would be no going back. The bond would be cemented, the deal sealed. Two independent entities would become one.
“If I asked you to kiss me, would you do it?” His words caressed her lips.
“Yes.” No hesitation. No doubts. Just honesty.
“Because you want to or because I told you to?”
She wagged her head in confusion. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what’s real anymore.” He released her, and disappointment rippled through her. “I’m not what you need. I’ll only drag you down. That’s what I do. I don’t need my memories to know that.”
He stood, walked to the window and stared outside, where a blanket of clouds hovered beneath a flickering sun. “I destroy everything I touch.”
She wanted to refute his claim, but how could she, when everything inside her insisted he was right? What scared her was how little she cared. She needed to be near him, and damn the consequences. She’d always been the reasonable one, the responsible sister, the one who thought things through. But right now recklessness invaded her psyche, steamrolled every word of caution screeching in her mind.
“I’m not afraid of you.” He was dangerous, no question about that, but for some inexplicable reason she felt safe with him.
“You should be.” He took a few predatory steps toward her, then twined his fingers in her hair in a gesture that was passionate enough to be painful. “I can get inside your head, make you do anything I want.”
“I doubt that.”
“I’ll prove it.” A wicked glint deepened his eyes to emerald. “Take off your robe.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, dug her heels in, literally and figuratively. “Cassie told me you have a way of always getting what you want from women, but this shocking display of overconfidence is a little much. Even for you.”
Surprise clouded his features. “It doesn’t work on you.” She couldn’t tell if what she caught in his voice was pleasure or regret.
“What doesn’t work on me?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
Irritation swept in to tighten her stomach muscles, followed closely by exasperation. “You can really drive a girl mad, you know that?”
A tight laugh resonated in his chest. “You’ve got no idea.”
Frantic waves beat the shore. They pounded sand and rock with violent fists right before they crested at the foot of the cliff where Marcus stood. The Watchers’ complex sat at the head of a tall hill framing the sea. It was peaceful out here, deserted. In this small corner of the world, a Hybrid didn’t have to fear what he was. There was no one around for miles. No one he could influence or corrupt. No one who could influence and corrupt him.
His encounter with Jace Cutler had shaken him, and that was saying a lot, because his kind wasn’t easily flustered. He still couldn’t understand what had happened last night, why he’d let Cutler walk away. The impulse to back off had been stronger than him, impossible to control or subdue. Now what the hell was he going to tell Cal? The man was counting on him.
“I thought I’d find you out here.” Cal’s familiar voice echoed above the surf as whitecaps continued to froth below. The guy had a sixth sense like nothing Marcus had ever seen before. No detail escaped him. Marcus’s tracking abilities paled in comparison.
“Needed some time alone to think.”
“I gather things didn’t go according to plan last night.”
Marcus hesitated. Even though he was a soulless son of a bitch, he still cared enough to want to please Cal. The man was like a father to him, the only one he remembered. He couldn’t stomach the thought of disappointing him. “I’m still trying to sort everything out. I had him, Cal. I had him cornered. Then I just let him go.”
Puzzled brows rode high on Cal’s forehead. “He planted a suggestion?”
“That’s the only thing that makes sense, but I just can’t wrap my brain around it. We’re not supposed to be able to influence each other. That only works on humans. But I know one thing—I wouldn’t have released him. Not willingly.”
Cal studied the battling swells below, equally balanced forces rising from the sea to duel for dominance. “This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If he asserted his power over you, then he can assert his power over others like you.”
“You mean Athanatos?”
“I doubt anyone could influence Athanatos—he’s too powerful—but his followers are a different story. We need to get Cutler on our side.”
A seagull swooped down to nip at the damp sand. Its mournful cries rose to the sky, beckoning others to join the feast. “How? He doesn’t trust me. And I certainly didn’t win him over last night. I think I nicked him with my dagger. There was angel’s blood on it.”
“An unfortunate setback, but nothing that can’t be put right.” Cal inclined his eyes toward the heavens as if seeing something visible only to him. He did that often—stared at the infinite stretch above with a longing that pierced with its intensity. “Did you manage to read him? Is he likely to go rogue?
”
“Can’t be sure. The darkness is strong in him, almost pure. His impulses could prove hard to control. I think he may have already fed. His behavior was wild, erratic. You should’ve seen what he did to that guy, Cal. He would’ve killed him if I hadn’t shown up.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Then there’s hope.”
Marcus scoffed. “If we can get through his thick skull. The guy’s as pigheaded as they come.”
The statement didn’t deter Cal in the least. Very few things did. “If you can’t take him by force, then we’ll just have to persuade him to come to us.”
“How?”
“By capturing what he most desires.”
The wind picked up, and—although it was physically impossible—Marcus could’ve sworn he felt the chill. “Are you referring to Lia Benson?”
“You said it yourself; her energy perfectly mirrors his. If my theory is correct, then she’s the key.”
“We’d be taking one hell of a risk. You know how protective a Hybrid can be of what’s his.”
Contentment tugged at Cal’s mouth, and his impassive face almost broke into a smile. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
Chapter Eleven
Jasmine and lavender. The subtle fragrance taunted him from beyond the closed bathroom door, spiced with the familiar scent of her skin. Lia was taking a shower, and Jace’s senses were so sharp, he could hear the water caressing her naked flesh, the soap bar gliding erotically over her belly, sliding down the gentle flare of her hips to coat them with suds.
She liked it. Liked the way the water massaged her, warm and silky. Liked the soft touch of the soap and how clean it made her feel.
Her thoughts traveled through the atmosphere like sound waves, rang loud and clear in his head. He sensed her confusion, the maelstrom of emotions warring inside her, her desire to throw caution to the wind and follow her heart for once. For a second she considered inviting him to join her, and the force of her yearning nearly undid him. Every inch of him burned with the need to explore and possess. Hell, for a chance to stand naked beside her, he would’ve even risked drowning again.
