by Laken Cane
No one did. Not that much.
“He can’t die,” Miriam said, staring at Clayton. “Not really. I kill him, I bring him back. Over and over. You’d think I’d get bored, but all I have to do is look over there, and I am no longer soft.”
I glanced at the wall of pictures to which she pointed. Enlarged, framed photographs of a little blonde girl and a tall, smiling man. Some of them were black and white, some a faded dull color, some of them sepia. In every one of them, Miriam was as grim and unsmiling as her father was laughing and happy.
Clayton moaned, his voice a crawling, wet thing, and I strode toward him. I slipped in a blob of congealed blood, but Rhys was there to steady me.
How could a person survive so much torture and not be driven mad? I didn’t know. Maybe it wasn’t possible. Maybe he was as mad as Miriam but better at hiding it.
Miriam slid her gaze to me. “Sometimes I get carried away. I’ll fix him up before you take him.”
I gaped at her. “You can do that?”
“Of course. How do you think he walks out of this house every day? Put him on the table, Rhys.”
“I got you, man,” Rhys said, gently, and when I unbuckled the cuffs and Clayton began to slide down the wall, Rhys caught him. He half dragged Clayton to the table in the middle of the floor and helped him lie down.
“Miriam, what have you done?” But I didn’t really want to know. He swam in blood. White bone gleamed through gaping holes. First, I felt horror, then I felt pain, and then, there was only rage.
I would have killed her right then if I hadn’t been so sure Clayton would go with her. He couldn’t die. Not yet. Not until he’d experienced something good first. And then I’d let him go.
He deserved his peace. His niche.
“Move aside,” she said. “It’ll be dark soon and the island awaits.” She paused and looked at me. “You’ll be careful, Trinity. Something is different with this day. This night. I can feel it.”
She reached out to take my hand and I jerked away from her, snarling. “Fix him. Don’t try to touch me. I will…” But I controlled myself and cut my words off. I didn’t want her to change her mind. She could. She certainly could.
Pain flared in her eyes, and her bloody hand fluttered to her chest. “Trinity…”
“Fix him,” I repeated.
She nodded, then walked to the table. She opened a drawer on the side and pulled out a dark, wide-mouthed jar, and after she twisted the lid off, she scooped out what looked like wet, black mud.
I stiffened when she put her hands on him, but I didn’t try to stop her. Clayton needed help. I couldn’t give it to him.
Miriam slid her muddy fingers through the blood covering his body, starting at his feet. She hesitated only once. “I went too far,” she admitted. “I was trying to force the demon out—after all, he can feel the pain, too. But I lost control. I told you there’s something bad about this day.”
Stunned, I could only gape at her. “You know the demon is still inside him?”
She smiled. “Of course. He hid for a little while. He is still hiding. But we know he is there. Waiting. Biding his time. I will not let him take Clayton from me. Not again. That’s why I did this.”
I glared at her. “You hurt him before he had a demon inside him.
She lowered her gaze. The Miriam I knew was slowly sliding back into her head. “I do this to feel better.”
“Does it help?” Rhys asked, standing with his hands at his side, his fingers dripping blood. “Does it really help?”
“Not as much as it once did,” she said. “I have to do more to get the same joy.” She stilled her hands and looked at Rhys. “Trinity helps me. I feel better just from being next to her. You know what that means, don’t you?”
“Stop talking,” I cried. “Stop having a fucking conversation and fix him, damn you!”
But Rhys had one more thing to say to her. “Then you’d better give yourself and Clayton to her before she kills both of you.”
Miriam looked at me, just briefly, but I saw the resistance in her eyes. She might have given herself to me, but she’d never give me Clayton.
And I would kill her.
Finally, she began again. She molded Clayton like a sculptor would mold a chunk of wet clay. She hummed something unending and tuneless under her breath, and her hands glowed with a pale, yellow light. She closed holes, reformed missing pieces, and smoothed new flesh over bones. Still, when she massaged in new skin, parts of it were marked with scars.
No wonder she could hurt him so easily. He was not a man to her. He was not a person to her. He was simply a clay doll, and that clay was the object of everything that was wrong with her.
I wiped tears from my face. “What’s his real name?”
She shrugged. “I no longer remember. He is Clayton. Ask him and he’ll tell you the same.”
She worked him into something real. Something breathing. Something…healed.
But the entire time he was sculpted and shaped and formed, he stared out at me from glittering eyes that were completely lucid. Completely aware.
Completely helpless.
She reached his face, finally, running her thumbs over his cheekbones, his nose, his beautiful, sensual lips, lips that were missing until she manipulated them into what they’d once been.
I would never unsee that.
I would never forget.
And I became a little harder. A little colder.
Silverlight vibrated against my flesh, begging to be released, and I really didn’t know who she wanted to taste. Who she wanted to kill.
Miriam, or Clayton.
Chapter Twenty-One
By the time we left Miriam’s blood-soaked house, Clayton was once more in possession of his clothes and his weapons and was able to limp out under his own steam. He wasn’t okay—not by any stretch of the imagination—but he was whole, and he was healing rapidly.
Miriam stood in the doorway and watched us go, her eyes blank. I turned back to look at her before I got into the captain’s car, and we stared at each other, silent and grim.
She knew I was planning to kill her.
If she did as Rhys had suggested and gave herself to me, allowed me to dominate her, I would simply order her to hold still for her death. Maybe deciding whether she lived or died shouldn’t have been up to me. Maybe it would harm me, change me, make me the killer.
But I really didn’t care.
I’d called Derry while waiting for Clayton to get ready, and she promised to leave me a change of clothes at Rhys’s place. They’d be waiting for me when I got there.
I got into the car beside Clayton.
He stared straight ahead. “Your rage is not just for Miriam.”
I waited until Rhys backed out, then began to follow him. We were going to his house. I had no idea where else to take Clayton, and Rhys had offered.
I didn’t look at him. “All these years you put up with that shit. All this time you just go along with it. You don’t fight, you don’t find a way out. You just take it. You’re as messed up as she is.” God, my anger was enormous.
He stared out his window. “I hired a man to kill her.”
I jerked my head around to look at him. “What? When?”
“Years ago. He put a bullet in her brain.” He paused. “You saw how she repaired me.”
I nodded, then shuddered. “I wish I hadn’t.”
“She died when he shot her, and then I watched her mend herself. Her body reknits when she’s harmed. And she doesn’t need to do anything. It just is.”
“Why was Shane so worried she’d be killed hunting, then?”
“Shane doesn’t know her. No one knows Miriam Crow.”
“No one but you.”
He nodded. “I know her better than anyone else, and I still don’t know how to kill her. All she needs to regenerate is a drop of her blood, a flake of skin, or a strand of her hair. She regrows. Spawns. Regenerates. Whatever you call it, she cannot really die
.”
“Everyone can die.”
He sighed. “A few years after the shooting I planted a bomb in her bedroom. I was with her when it detonated, and I know it blasted her into bits of blood and bone. She brought me back weeks later. We were in a different town, a different house. Physically, she was the same. Mentally, she was darker. She punished me for that attempt in ways I will never…” He put his fingers to his lips and fell into silence.
I did not want him to tell me how she’d hurt him, so I rushed in to fill the thick silence. “So when she dies, you won’t necessarily die? You said you watched her come back to life after the shooting.”
“She told me she has worked hard to make sure I won’t survive her death, so I don’t know.”
“Do you care?”
He turned from the window to watch me. “I would have given anything to die and stay dead. Now, I would regret leaving you. You need me—you need all of us—more than you understand. And my life no longer stretches out before me in endless darkness the way it did before I…before you. So yes, I care. But if my choices are either dying or spending eternity with Miriam, I would rather die.”
I swallowed hard, but it didn’t dislodge the knot in my throat. “I will fix this,” I vowed. “I’ll find a way.”
“Maybe. Maybe you will.”
“I have to free you,” I murmured. “How can I do that?”
“She would have to willingly transfer the control to you.” He shrugged. “She would have to willingly give you custody. And that will never happen.”
“There’s another way.”
“The incubus.”
I nodded. “He freed you once. He can do it again.”
“He’s gone,” Clayton said. “I can’t feel him.”
“No. You know he’s not really gone.” I hesitated. “I saw him in your eyes the day they took Angus away.”
“I felt him before. I don’t feel him now. So I don’t know.”
I smiled grimly. “Miriam knows. And she’s afraid of him, Clayton. That means she knows he can free you. If we can’t kill her, then Seth Damon is our only hope.”
Ahead of us, Rhys signaled he was about to turn into the driveway of a brick one-story, and I pulled in behind him. I shut off the engine, then blew out a hard breath. Without thinking, I reached across the seat to grasp Clayton’s hand.
He reflexively jerked, but before I could withdraw, he tightened his grip and held me there. “Wait.”
But when his eyes began to redden, I jerked my hand away. “I can’t stand to see you in pain.”
He blinked away the blood. “It’s worth a little pain to touch you.”
I clutched the steering wheel. “I hate that you have to live this way.”
“I have dreams of being free. That’s more than I had before.”
“Dreams are not enough.” I opened the car door and we climbed out to join Rhys. “Let’s get you settled, then I’ll head to the island.”
Clayton hefted the small bag he carried. “I’m going to shower, then have dinner with you. Afterward, we will head to the island.” He still flinched when he moved, and he walked gingerly, holding himself carefully, but his eyes were bright and his mood was good. Just being away from Miriam was helping him recover.
“I’ll give him something to help him feel better,” Rhys said. “He’ll be okay now.”
Derry had left my overnight bag outside Rhys’s door, and I grabbed it as we waited for Rhys to unlock his door. I was badly in need of a hot shower and blood-free clothes.
Rhys’s place was freakishly neat and uncluttered. It had absolutely nothing personal that might give a clue to who Rhys Graver really was. No framed photos, no albums, no movies. Anyone could have lived there.
It didn’t matter to me. I knew he was a good guy, and I knew he would do anything for a friend.
“I’m not much of a cook, I’m afraid,” he said, after he’d given us a short tour. “Make yourselves at home. I’ll run out and get us some dinner while Clayton is cleaning up.” He handed Clayton a small packet. “Take these before your shower. Take two more when you get to the island. They’ll make you forget your woes.”
After Rhys left, I trailed Clayton to the bathroom, afraid to leave him alone. With everything I now knew about Miriam, I half expected her to flow out of the faucet with the water and drag Clayton back home.
He understood.
I shut the bathroom door and leaned against the wall, watching him undress. He groaned as he tried to pull off his t-shirt, and finally, I grabbed a pair of scissors from the sink and cut it off him. I made sure not to touch him, no matter how much I wanted to.
He balanced himself against the wall while I knelt to pull off his shoes, and then I stayed where I was, looking up the line of his body, as he unfastened his pants.
I pulled them over his hips, shoving them away when he stepped out of them, and then I held my breath as I grasped the fabric of his boxers and helped him out of them.
I needed to see him as he was now. I needed to get the images of what Miriam had done to him out of my head. So I knelt on the floor and clenched my fists, and I devoured with my stare the beauty and strength that I could not touch.
When he began to grow stiff beneath my regard, I glanced up to meet his eyes. “You want to touch me,” he murmured.
My voice was hoarse when I answered him. “So much it hurts.”
“Even though you saw me like that.”
“I want to scrub that from my brain. Seeing you like this will help.” I lifted my hand, hesitated, and lowered it back to my lap. “Take your shower. I have two men I need to free and time is running out for both of you.”
He stepped into the shower and I sat there watching him soap his body as the water rinsed the remaining blood away. Miriam had sprayed him down before he’d left the table, but it hadn’t been enough. He needed to wash her off his body, as well.
Two minutes later I surprised him by climbing into the shower with him.
I shrugged, then grinned. “I need a shower, too. Do you mind?”
His slow smile was full of pure masculine appreciation. “No.”
He came to me, and for a second I was afraid he was about to take his chances, throw me against the shower wall and slam himself inside me. I might not have argued.
But he stopped just short of touching me. His stare was dark and sharp, his lips parted, his sex hot and hard and so very, very tempting.
The tip of his erection touched me once and he hissed and jerked away, as though that touch had burned him. Likely, it had.
He rested his hands against the wall on either side of my head, and slowly he lowered his mouth to mine, almost touching my lips with his. Almost.
I moaned, unable to help it. If I pursed my lips, I could have kissed him. If I slid my tongue out, just a tiny, tiny bit, I could have tasted him.
He bent his knees, sliding his hands down the tile, taking his lips away from mine. I rested my head against the wall and closed my eyes as he blew on my skin. His breath was warm, but goosebumps covered my body.
Desire, sweet and melting, grew into fierce, hot lust. I welcomed it. I couldn’t do anything else. My heart thumped against my ribs, hard and fast, and I looked down at him.
His mouth lingered at my breasts, and he blew on a wet, stiff nipple, making me cry out. I arched my back, urging him to take it into his mouth. But he could not.
He dropped to his knees, his face level with my groin, as water beat at his back.
“Clayton,” I whispered.
I felt like I’d been running for miles. My chest rose and fell as I exhaled rapid, shaky breaths, unable to get enough air into my lungs.
“Spread your legs,” he said, watching me.
I moved my feet apart and he half smiled, his eyes glittering.
He said nothing, just knelt there, staring up at me, waiting. There was magic in his eyes and in the air between us. I could almost feel him touching whatever his stare caressed. When he breathed upo
n my skin, I felt him kissing me, licking me.
I slid my hand over my belly, then dipped my fingers between my thighs.
And he dropped his gaze to watch.
He watched me for just a few seconds before he stood, grabbed the hand-held sprayer from its bracket, and then adjusted the setting to pulse. Hard pulse.
I gasped and then lost my breath when he knelt once more and turned that pounding water stream on me.
I slid down the wall and opened my legs and he knelt there between them, playing the water over my body, and it was almost, almost as strong as his stare, his lust, his need. His strong hands weren’t on my body, but I could close my eyes and there he was, touching me, holding me, loving me.
“I would give anything to be inside you right now.”
His voice was raw, deep, full of emotion, and I opened my eyes to look at him. I was sure everything I felt was in my face because his stare softened, and I could almost see something inside him shift.
I smiled as my orgasm prepared to shatter me. “You are.”
Enclosed in that small space, hidden from the world inside a waterfall, I fell in love with Clayton Wilder.
Then I stiffened, crying out as that pounding water beat against me, unable to look away from him, whispering his name as I came. And afterward, I got to my knees and knelt beside him, and we might have sat there forever, cooling water chilling our overheated skin, had not my cell phone rang.
I leapt from the shower and grabbed my phone. “Rhys?”
“I got called to a job, sweetheart. There’s takeout in the kitchen. Oh, and I stopped by Ang’s house and found your pin. You’ll need all the protection you can get tonight. There are vests in the cabinet in my study. Both of you wear one.” He paused. “I’m sorry I can’t be there.”
“Rhys—”
But he was gone.
The urgency of the night once again descended, looming heavy and full of dread.
I sent Clayton to get the vests and I headed to the kitchen, where dinner and the hideous pin waited. I fastened the pin to my shirt, then spooned food onto plates as I waited for Clayton.
He returned a few minutes later with two protective vests and an armload of weapons he could sheath, pocket, and hide on his body—various types of blades, two guns, and some extra ammo.
