by Anne Hope
Jace swallowed an oath. He was losing it. He couldn’t be reading Lia’s mind. More likely he was hearing an echo of his own thoughts. He wanted her—there was no question about that—and his desire ran deeper than the physical.
She was all wrong for him. It didn’t take a genius to see that Lia Benson was his polar opposite, all goodness and light, while he was anything but. Her sister was more his type, a long-legged beauty with a soul as ravaged as his. Provided he had a soul. He couldn’t be sure of anything anymore, except for the yawning emptiness inside him.
The water stopped, and moments later she emerged, wrapped in a baby-blue terrycloth robe, her skin rosy from the warm assault of the jets, her hair a burnished cascade of damp curls tumbling over her shoulders. He hadn’t realized how long her hair was, or how damn silky it looked. His hand itched with the need to touch it, to wrap one of those wicked strands around his finger and anchor her to him. Her haloing glow burned so bright, he had to squint to look at her. That phosphorous essence filled him, even as the hunger inside him grew painful. The dueling needs to consume and protect raged beneath his ribs. He wasn’t sure which was more powerful or which would win. He knew only that he couldn’t walk away. No matter what.
A shy smile flickered across her mouth. “Shower’s all yours. Try not to smash the door this time.”
He would’ve liked nothing more than to offer a smart reply, but his voice was buried beneath thick layers of emotion. The only thought in his head was how impossibly radiant she was. He was a flaming idiot for ever thinking of her as plain.
His silence discomfited her. He didn’t need to read her thoughts to know it. He saw it in the tight clasp of her arms across her chest and the jerky way she shifted her weight to the balls of her feet. “I never asked you how you found me.”
“You’re in the book,” he lied. The truth was, some crazy instinct had driven him to her. All he’d had to do was picture her face in his mind. “Not too many Lia Bensons with an M.D. after their name.”
Her gaze flitted from her feet to her hands, then settled somewhere beyond his shoulder as she struggled to avoid making eye contact. “Yeah, I guess so.” She offered him a tremulous smile. “I have to get to the hospital. Make yourself at home while I’m gone.”
She breezed past him, a fragrant cloud of flowers and woman, soft and inviting. Dark, dangerous need coiled in his gut. He wanted to follow her, grab her and press her to the wall, feel her curves mold to his body and her wet skin brush his. He wanted to crush her mouth, devour it, pull her essence deep inside him where it could never escape him.
Instead, he stalked into the bathroom, where her feminine scent lingered and another ice-cold shower awaited him.
An unnatural hush hung over the hospital today, soft and pacifying. A minimum number of trauma patients were brought in, the staff seemed relatively calm and happy, and no one got into a scrap over an overturned cart. Overall, life was good.
Lia busied herself making her rounds, reassuring her patients, going over test results, but she had trouble concentrating. Memories of Jace kept invading her thoughts—the way he’d cradled her in his arms last night, the vulnerability she’d caught in his eyes when he’d asked her if she’d be willing to kiss him. God, she’d wanted to. The mere thought of it made electric energy vibrate in her pores, until her skin ached from it. Loneliness was far more comfortable than this unfamiliar yearning that had taken root within her. She was used to being alone. The last thing she’d been looking for was a relationship, and a complicated one at that.
Yet here she was, suddenly unable to think of anything else, as though she’d found the part of herself that had been missing all these years.
It made no sense. She didn’t believe in things such as fate, even less so in the theory of soul mates. Her mother had spent her entire life looking for her other half, only to fail miserably. At the moment, Janine Evans Benson Lorenzo Morris was going through her fourth bitter divorce. Cassie was so much like their mom, it was scary. Every part of her being was centered on finding the one, the man who’d complete her, that once-in-a-lifetime relationship that would finally validate her existence.
Lia had always prided herself on refusing to become a slave to foolish romantic notions. She was in charge of her own destiny. She’d never needed a man to feel complete.
Until now.
She’d even considered seducing him that morning, which was totally unlike her. That was more something Cassie would do. Still, the thought of inviting him to join her in the shower had thrilled and invigorated her. Thankfully, she hadn’t worked up the nerve to actually go through with it, partly because she was a coward and partly because the fear of hurting her sister had held her back. She couldn’t control her thoughts or her yearnings, but she could control her actions. That had to count for something.
With a sigh, Lia took a sip of her coffee—black, no sugar—and pulled out the next lab report. Unlike matters of the heart, medicine was something she understood, and understood well. One document in particular snagged her attention. Jace’s bloodwork was in. She studied the results, looking for anything that could explain the events of the past two days.
Nothing.
Everything appeared perfectly normal. The viral check would take a couple of days to come in, but she was willing to bet nothing would show up there either. Maybe Jace was right. Maybe she really couldn’t explain any of this with something as mundane as a medical exam. There were some things science still failed to grasp. Perhaps what had happened to Jace was one of them.
Lia paused as she noted the discrepancy. When Jace was first admitted to the hospital, a sample of his blood had been sent to the lab to determine his blood type, in the event he needed a transfusion. The results had indicated a rare subtype—A2 negative. This sample was A negative.
She wasn’t sure what had transpired, but she knew for a fact that this second sample hadn’t come from Jace Cutler.
She caught sight of Katie at the nurse’s station, flagged her down. “Katie, are you the one who collected that blood sample from Jace Cutler?”
“No.” The young nurse flushed. “Diane did.”
The mention of that woman’s name made ice crust along Lia’s nerves.
“I know you assigned the task to me,” Katie quickly justified, “and I had every intention of doing it myself. I was on my way to his room when Diane saw me and offered to take over. I was going to say no, but for some reason I didn’t.” Katie worried her lower lip. “To be honest, I was kinda relieved.”
Katie’s statement puzzled Lia. “Why?”
She hitched her shoulder in a childlike shrug. “I didn’t like being around him. He made me feel funny. I don’t know how to explain it. Whenever I was with him, everything looked bleak, like a faded image, a painting with no color.” She reflected, buried her hands in the pockets of her nurse’s uniform. “It’s as if he ate away all my hope and all that was left was despair.”
“That’s impossible. No person can do that.”
“Not a person, no.” The girl averted her gaze. “But a demon could.”
Katie was taking this superstitious nonsense a little too far. Lia tamped down the wave of foreboding cresting in her chest and shook her head. “There’s no such thing as demons.”
“That’s not what my grandmother says. She says demons walk among us wearing human flesh. That they bring out the worst in people, push them to violence, then feed on their souls.
“There’s a legend in our family,” Katie continued, her expression brimming with conviction. “A couple of centuries ago one of my ancestors was traveling by wagon from Iowa to Oregon with a group of pioneers. By the time they reached Malheur River, they were exhausted. That’s when they met another group of travelers that had set up camp there. The strangers invited them to stop and rest, and the pioneers agreed.
“But then everything started to go wrong. Despair set in. The pioneers became angry, disoriented. They couldn’t agree which route to take. They sta
rted to fight. One man actually killed another in a fit of rage. My ancestor swore that he saw one of the strangers bend over and swallow the dead man’s soul. He totally freaked out and ran for his life. He later returned with a rescue party, but there was no sign of the others.
“Till his dying day, he was convinced the strangers were demons and that they’d fed on every last one of his friends.”
Lia searched Katie’s expression for a sign that she was kidding, but the granite-hard dread on the young nurse’s face convinced her she was dead serious. “You can’t possibly believe that.”
Embarrassment darkened Katie’s cheeks. “I’m not sure what to believe. It sounds totally nuts, I know. But the way I’ve been feeling lately…it creeps me out. I keep thinking, what if the story is true? What if there really are creatures out there that bring out the worst in people?”
“We don’t need demons for that. People bring out the worst in people.” Lia took Katie’s hands in hers. “Look, I know this job is hard. Every day we see illness, injury. We try to fight it, to save people, but too often we fail. Like it or not, that takes a toll. What you’re feeling is perfectly normal. There’s only one demon to blame, and that demon is death. Once you accept that, you’ll be far more able to cope. Just keep in mind all the good you’re doing, all the people whose pain you lessen, all the lives you help save.”
Katie gave a weak nod. “You’re right. I know you’re right. I’m just being silly.”
“We all have our moments.” A self-deprecating smile curled Lia’s lips. “I thought I saw a man come back to life. How silly is that?”
“Pretty silly.”
“Downright insane.”
“Looney-bin nuts.”
“I think we’ve established that.” Laughter rippled between them, easing the tension. “I really should get back to my rounds.” Lia turned to leave, then remembered the reason she’d dropped by to speak to Katie in the first place. “I almost forgot, is Diane in today?”
“She’s on the schedule, but she never showed. Not sure what’s up with her. She didn’t even call to tell us she was taking a personal day.”
Great. The woman was really starting to piss her off. First she lied and made her look like a fool to Dr. Adams, then she took unwanted liberties with her, and now she’d foiled Jace’s test results and not even bothered to come in to answer for it. “Can you do me a favor? Page me if she decides to make an appearance.”
“Sure thing, Doc.”
Lia walked away from the nurse’s station, her face set in a scowl, her exasperation scratching its way past the composed façade she always struggled to maintain. Despite the sound advice she’d given Katie, she, too, was starting to crack under the pressure. There was only so much a person could take, and she’d just about reached her limit.
Or so she thought, until she turned the corner and plowed straight into the dark-haired man she’d met in Jace’s hospital room yesterday. Grim, determined eyes flashed to hers just as rock-hard arms rose to ensnare her. Before she could scream, she felt a sharp pressure at the base of her neck and darkness descended, a black shroud that fell in folds to smother the light.
Chapter Twelve
Light. Bright, blinding light. A room with steel, quicksilver walls. A low ceiling. A rhythmical, tapping sound, like rain pounding on a rooftop. Lia squeezed through the white haze in her mind, clawed her way toward awareness and slowly forced her eyes open.
Fear instantly poured over her, made her wish for unconsciousness again. She was strapped to a metal chair, in an eight-by-eight cell with no windows. The white sheets of light came from two tall lamps, positioned on either side of her. If she were the type of person who spun conspiracy theories, she’d think she was in some kind of interrogation room, where inhuman forms of torture were used to extract information from an unwilling subject.
In front of her, mere feet from the door, stood a pale apparition with hair more golden than the sun and eyes as silver as the walls in this godforsaken place. He watched her intently, his expression drenched with wonder, as if she were a rare bug on a slide under the magnifying lens of a microscope.
“I still can’t believe what I’m seeing.” He made no sound as he approached, despite the fact that he was a big man, over six-feet-five-inches in height, with a square, muscular build. His hand cupped her cheek, and Lia jerked away, fighting the urge to bite his fingers like a cornered animal.
The man didn’t seem to notice or care. “Magnificent,” he said. “Truly magnificent. Do you have any idea what you are?”
“At the moment, a prisoner. Mind telling me why you brought me here and why you have me tied to this chair?”
The man’s face remained smooth, as serene as an angel’s. “If I release you, you’ll attempt to escape before you hear me out. I can’t allow that. Not yet.”
“Who are you?” Desperation crept into her bloodstream, slow and sapping. “What do you want from me?”
“To understand you.” The man crouched before her until their eyes were almost level. “To understand your connection to him.” He ran his palms over her body without touching her. “I haven’t felt an aura this powerful since the beginning of humanity. A soul this strong can no longer be contained by a single human body, and yet it lives in you.”
Crazy had just gotten a whole lot crazier. She was having another weird dream. There was no other explanation.
Wake up, Lia. For God’s sake, snap out of it!
“This isn’t a dream,” the golden mirage told her. “You’re not hallucinating. There are things your kind is not meant to see, but that doesn’t make them any less real.”
She’d gone and done it. She’d finally cracked, probably a result of all those double and triple shifts she’d been pulling. Her eyes burned, but she was too freaked out to cry. She squeezed her lids together for a second, blocked out the compelling sight of that strange, angelic face. “Go away. Leave me alone.”
Genuine regret twisted his features. “I can’t.”
Just then the door swung open on creaking hinges, and the dark stranger who’d abducted her entered. These two men couldn’t have looked more different, yet they somehow complemented each other, like day complements night.
“Was I right, Cal?” he asked the blond man. “Is she a twin soul?”
“I had my doubts, but yes. Every sign points to that.” He unfolded his body and went to stand beside the brute who’d kidnapped her. “What’s most interesting is that she wasn’t born this way. One half of her soul once belonged to a Hybrid. Now it has somehow found its way back home.”
The dark-haired man frowned. “How? A human cannot attract another soul.”
“I honestly don’t know,” the other replied, shaking his flaxen head.
“Could she be a Hybrid?”
“I don’t sense any darkness in her.”
They seemed to have forgotten she was there. “Excuse me, but I’m sitting right here. Painfully bound, by the way. Would either one of you overgrown bullies care to tell me what all this is about? I’ll ask again, who are you, and what do you want from me?”
The dark one met and held her gaze. “The name’s Marcus. I apologize for the surprise attack,” he said without bothering to look the slightest bit repentant. “Abducting you was the only way we could think of to get him to listen to reason.”
“You guys keep talking about him. Who is this elusive person I’m allegedly connected to?”
“Jace Cutler.” Marcus’s words delivered an electric bolt to her system. This nightmare was real. Every last sordid second of it. These guys, Cal and Marcus, weren’t lying when they said she was connected to Jace. Hadn’t she suspected the very same thing for days?
“Oh, God. I’m not dreaming, am I?”
Both men shook their heads, as if they shared one mind. Cal’s expression shone with empathy, an emotion his friend obviously lacked. She’d never seen a face as cool and blank as Marcus’s. She wondered if he was capable of feeling anything at all.
“What are you going to do to me?”
Cal ate up the distance between them and laid a gentle hand on her head, as if she were a distressed child he meant to pacify. “We won’t hurt you. You can trust us.”
“We’re not the bad guys,” Marcus tossed in. “Those soulless sons of bitches would’ve stripped you bare in minutes.”
“Something tells me this one is not as easy to strip bare,” Cal countered.
“She can’t be taken?”
“Not by force. One half of her soul once belonged to a Hybrid. That provides her with a certain protection.” Cal’s voice dipped, a painful whisper scraping the air. “An immunity, if you will.”
“But the prophecy—”
Cal raised a silencing hand. Marcus had obviously been about to reveal something he didn’t want her to hear.
Lia grew more confused by the second. “What prophecy?”
A lethal glint slid across Cal’s fluid, mercury eyes. “All you need to know is that you’re different—important—and that there are creatures out there, unconscionable beings that would stop at nothing to possess your light.”
Bile lumped in Lia’s throat. So there were others like these two, and apparently they weren’t nearly as amiable. The thought did little to comfort her.
“Do you think Athanatos suspects anything?” Marcus asked.
Cal’s features hardened to stone. “No. If he did, she wouldn’t be here right now. She’d be with them.”
They were doing it again, talking about her as if she wasn’t in the room. “Anyone care to enlighten me as to what’s going on here?”
“Things will become clear in time,” Cal reassured her. “I will explain everything once Jace Cutler decides to grace us with his presence.”
“And if he doesn’t?” She moved her fingers, tried to improve the circulation in her wrists. She could feel her skin beginning to bruise beneath the tight ropes.
