by Jenna Black
I grunted in frustration. “If you want me to cooperate with you, you’re going to have to give up some of your precious secrets.”
He met my eyes. “I can’t. Not without Lugh’s permission. He’s my king.”
Lugh wasn’t giving me any headaches at the moment, but I decided that was because he knew Adam wouldn’t believe me if I said he was. But you can bet your ass I’d have a bunch of questions to ask him tonight—assuming I ever managed to fall asleep.
“Can you at least answer my second question about whether you think Raphael could be back yet?”
Adam nodded. “It’s possible.”
“Then how do we keep Andrew safe?”
“For tonight,” Adam said, “I’ve put a guard on his room at the hospital. That’s why I was there. Running into you was only a happy coincidence.” He gave me a cheesy smile, and I snorted.
“Yeah, as evidenced by the fact that Dom made dinner for three.”
The cheesy smile remained in place. “Perhaps a not-unexpected happy coincidence.”
“So for tonight, he has a guard. What about tomorrow?”
“That’s the big question,” Adam said. “He can’t just go back to his apartment, and I doubt he’d be any safer staying with your parents.”
I sighed, realizing where this was going. “You want him to stay with me.”
Adam shrugged. “You do have a guest room in your new digs, right?”
“It’s not like I’d be much use as a bodyguard. Not against a demon, at least.”
“You would be if you let Lugh take charge.”
I shuddered, and every hint of appetite fled. I shoved my plate away from me, then pushed back from the table, fighting an urge to run like hell.
I had let Lugh take control of my body when I was about to be burned at the stake, but though he’d been kind enough to give me back control when everything was over, I still remembered with a shiver of panic the terrifying minutes when I was a helpless passenger in my own body. Being possessed, being helpless, had always been my worst nightmare—there was a reason I’d chosen exorcism as a profession—and though Lugh had saved my life by taking possession, it was not an experience I hoped to duplicate. Ever.
The panic continued to beat at me, and I rose to my feet. I think I would have run away if Adam hadn’t grabbed hold of my arm.
“Sit down, Morgan,” he said. His voice was conspicuously gentle. His ability to be gentle when he usually had such a hard edge to him always surprised me. The surprise lessened my panic, and I lowered myself back into the chair. “It was just a suggestion,” he continued. “But even if you’re not willing to let Lugh take control, Raphael might hesitate to attack your brother if he’s staying with you.”
I supposed that was true. Raphael might not realize that I wouldn’t voluntarily allow Lugh to surface. Besides, while there was admittedly bad blood between the brothers, Raphael appeared to have at least a modicum of respect for his king, and he might consider Andy staying with me as a sign that he was under Lugh’s protection.
“I’ll see if I can arrange it,” I said, wondering if Andy would even be willing to stay with me. We had established beyond a shadow of a doubt that I still loved him, but that didn’t mean things were ever going to be easy between us.
The enticing scents of dinner coaxed my appetite out of hiding, and I began to eat again. Dominic smiled knowingly at me, and I gave him a light kick under the table.
“Yeah, you’re the world’s greatest chef,” I said with my mouth full. “Don’t get a big head over it.” Adam chuckled, and I heard the double entendre in my words. I probably blushed, but luckily for everyone Adam let it go.
It wasn’t until after I’d eaten the last crumb of Dominic’s homemade tiramisu that Adam brought up the subject I’d been dreading since the moment I’d laid eyes on him. He got out the words “So are you going to talk to” before I cut him off.
“No!” I snapped. “I told Dominic no, and I’m saying the same thing to you. My mom and I are barely on speaking terms, and I’m not going to question her about whatever it was you dug up.”
His face darkened. “You know how important this is.”
“I don’t care,” I said stubbornly. “Even if I asked her, she wouldn’t tell me anything, I can guarantee that. And that’s my final answer.”
Adam’s cheeks flushed with anger, but Dominic laid a soothing hand on his arm. “Let it go,” he advised. “We’ll just have to find our answers some other way.”
I looked at him suspiciously. He was a hell of a lot nicer and had better people skills than Adam, but I knew from experience that he could also be a sneaky little bastard. His easy agreement suggested to me that he had something up his sleeve, but if he did, it wasn’t showing in his face.
Adam’s face clearly said he didn’t like it, but he let the subject drop. Dominic flashed me an innocent smile, and my gut knotted with worry.
It could be that he was really on my side, that there was no hidden meaning behind his words, no hidden agenda. But I knew unease would be clawing through me for the foreseeable future as I wondered if the two of them were up to something I didn’t want to know about.
All told, I suspected I should have resisted the unbearable temptation of that free, home-cooked meal.
Chapter 4
I went home with a lot to think about, but once I stepped through the door of my apartment and turned on the light, all the things I should have been thinking about fled my mind, and I hurried to the kitchen to check my answering machine.
The machine claimed I had two messages, and I held my breath as I hit the Play button.
“If you would like to make a call, please hang up and try again,” the machine said, and I hit the Erase button with a curse, waiting for the next message. “Hello!” a mechanical voice said. “I’m trying to reach—” I cursed again and erased the non-message.
It was now officially one week since Brian had last called. I’d told myself the cute, endearing messages he’d left on my machine every day were annoying. Not that it had stopped me from listening to them, mind you. When I’d been having a particularly bad day, I’d save his messages and play them over and over.
Maybe he was taking a vacation, on a cruise ship somewhere with no access to a phone. A lump formed in my throat. I swallowed hard. It was supposed to be a good thing if he’d finally gotten the message I’d been trying to shove down his gullet. Too bad my heart couldn’t seem to keep that in mind.
Missing the sound of his voice, the feel of his naked skin against mine, the taste of his tongue in my mouth, I went to bed. And lay there wide awake, tossing restlessly, my mind unable to shut down for the night.
My nerves felt twitchy, my skin oversensitive. Memories of cuddling up with Brian after a spectacular bout of lovemaking assaulted and aroused me. My hand slid down my belly toward my panties, but I jerked it away at the last moment. I knew it was incredibly silly, but I didn’t want to have an orgasm without Brian. I’d cave eventually, the physical need too strong to deny, but for the moment, I humored the part of me that still hoped I could make things work between us. If we did somehow, miraculously get back together, our reunion would be even sweeter if I’d been starving myself the whole time we were apart.
The last thing I remembered before I finally fell asleep was raising my head and glaring at the glowing numbers on my clock that told me it was three AM. Somewhere around one, I’d gotten up and played umpteen million games of Spider Solitaire to try to quiet my mind, but it didn’t seem to have worked. When I saw how late it was, I was tempted to give the night up as a lost cause, but I decided to give sleep one last shot. I should have known there was no rest for the wicked, because the minute I finally drifted off, I awakened in Lugh’s imaginary living room.
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at Lugh, who sat on his couch smiling at me, his amber eyes twinkling with humor. He’d gone with his S&M poster-boy look tonight, which he tends to do whenever I’ve had impure thought
s about Adam and Dominic, and was wearing something that was either a shirt cobbled together from black leather straps or a complicated bondage device I wanted no part of—despite the fact that the shirt/bondage device framed his nipples in the perfect, mouth-watering display, and the fact that my hormones couldn’t help taking in the golden, almost tawny color of his skin and the ripple of muscles beneath it.
Damn, I sure was missing the healthy sex life I had enjoyed with Brian. I mean, I’d have to be dead not to be turned on by Lugh, but if I were getting any in real life, surely it wouldn’t feel so…urgent.
Even though he can’t control me as well as most demons control their hosts, Lugh does have full access to my thoughts and memories. He knows when I’m aroused, no matter how much I might want to hide it. Which was no doubt the source of that damn smile on his face.
I stomped over to the chair across from him. He might know how much I liked the view, but that didn’t mean I had to admit it. “Why couldn’t you just let me sleep?” I griped.
His laugh was low and sexy and made every cell in my body thrum. “I was under the impression you had some questions for me.”
That was true, but it would have been easier to remember the questions if he weren’t dressed like that. I stared down at my hands, rather than at him. My hormones calmed, though I remained hyper-aware of his presence.
“Could Raphael be back on the Mortal Plain yet?” I asked.
“Certainly. If he was trusting enough to give someone on this plain his True Name, they could have summoned him back immediately.”
My gaze drifted away from my hands. “Do you think he is? Trusting enough, I mean.”
An expression crossed Lugh’s face that looked suspiciously like bitterness. “No. Only I was naive enough to reveal my True Name to anyone. But it was a long time ago, and relations between myself and my brothers weren’t so strained yet. At least, not outwardly. When they both reneged on the promise to reciprocate, I had my first inkling that all was not well between us. I’m sure Raphael has learned from my mistake. But even if he didn’t reveal his True Name, rank has its privileges, and he could have made his way back by now. Especially with Dougal’s help.”
Until I’d met Lugh, I hadn’t known anything about True Names, hadn’t even known they’d existed. I still knew very little—only that someone who knew a demon’s True Name could summon him specifically to the Mortal Plain. Questions tumbled over themselves in my brain trying to get out, but Lugh didn’t wait for me to sort through them.
“Don’t you think you should speak to your mother?” The look on his face told me the change of subject was deliberate—and nonnegotiable.
I was tempted to press, despite my conviction that it wouldn’t do any good, but I managed to resist. “You’re not going to lay a guilt trip on me, are you? Because you have to know my mom isn’t going to tell me anything even if I cave and talk to her.”
“I know you believe that. I don’t know if it’s true.”
My head jerked up, and I opened my mouth to say something scathing. Lugh stopped my words with an imperious gesture.
“But I also know,” he continued loudly, “that the more anyone tries to talk you into doing it, the more you’re going to dig your heels in.”
That effectively shut me up. He was right, of course, though I wasn’t completely comfortable with the admission. It made me sound kind of childish.
“So if you didn’t bring me here to persuade me to do what you want, and you’re not going to answer all the questions I have, then what are you actually up to?” I asked. I realized my eyes were roving over the exposed areas of his chest, and I once again dropped my gaze to my own hands. They were much less interesting.
“Would you believe I was just hoping we could get reacquainted?”
“No.”
He laughed again, tricking me into looking up. God, he was gorgeous! His hair was unbound today, framing his face in a raven’s wing halo. My skin remembered how silky that hair was to the touch. Not that we’d ever had any sexual relationship, nothing above some very aggressive flirting on his part—and some rampant desire on mine.
He cocked his head at me. “You’re not dating Brian anymore. Why are you still so uncomfortable with your attraction to me?”
I tried not to squirm. “Hey, you’re the one who can see into all the nooks and crannies in my mind. You tell me.”
He looked terribly amused. “Would you actually listen to anything I told you?”
Of course, he knew the answer to that, too. “Is there any chance we could just stick to business?”
He leaned forward on the couch, letting his hair flow over his shoulders to drape over the skin of his chest. I pressed my thighs together and reminded myself of the unfair advantage he had in the seduction and manipulation department.
“Your emotional well-being is my business,” he said. “You’re my host, and yet I’m utterly dependent on you. It is not the most comfortable of situations for either of us. The better you cope with the reality of our relationship, the better off we’ll both be.”
I shook my head. “None of that means you have to keep coming on to me!”
He met my mutinous gaze. “Do you think I’d keep doing it if you weren’t responding to me?”
“Since this is a dream and you control everything about it, you can make me respond whether I want to or not.”
He smiled, the expression equal parts amusement and exasperation. “Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better. You are, after all, the admitted queen of denial.”
“And proud of it, too.”
He laughed, the sound like warm black velvet gliding over my skin. Goose bumps peppered my arms, and Lugh’s unique scent—a blend of musk and spice like nothing I’d ever smelled before—tickled my nose. I might deny to him that I felt any genuine attraction, but it was getting harder by the minute to deny it to myself. I closed my eyes, willing myself to wake up, to escape.
Lugh interrupted my thoughts. “As a prince among demons, I have rarely had the opportunity to walk the Mortal Plain. You are only my third host in a very long life. But I’ve never seen—or even heard of—someone who keeps so much of herself walled off from the outside world.”
My eyes popped open. “What are you, my therapist?”
He smiled. “You, my dear, would drive a therapist to drink.”
I couldn’t help my reluctant laugh. He definitely had me pegged. “My parents made me see a therapist when I was a teenager. And if I didn’t drive him to drink, it wasn’t for lack of trying.”
“I know,” Lugh reminded me, and I scowled. He gave me an apologetic shrug. “I can’t help that I see inside your mind. Should I pretend I don’t?”
I sighed. “No, of course not. But I’m sure you see well enough to know how uncomfortable I am with the idea.”
He nodded. “I do. And I’m sorry. But I can’t help it.”
It seemed to me we were at an impasse, and I desperately hoped that meant he was about to let me wake up—or, better yet, drift off into dreamless slumber.
No dice.
“There is one part of your mind I can’t see into,” he said.
That sure as hell got my attention. “What do you mean?”
“I mean there are some memories that are so solidly walled off that I can’t breach your defenses even when I try.”
I instantly knew what he was talking about, but fascinating though it might be to know there was anything in my mind he couldn’t read, I still latched onto what—to me—was the most important thing he’d said.
“You’ve been trying to breach my defenses?” My voice had risen and sounded shrill. I tried to take it down a notch. “And here you were apologizing for what you couldn’t help seeing! For an apology to count, you have to actually mean it.”
“I do mean it. But you can’t expect a demon not to be fascinated when he finds a part of his host’s mind that he can’t penetrate.”
“Sure I can!”
; He sighed and shook his head. If I was lucky, I’d drive him to drink.
“So you’re not at all interested in this fact yourself?” he asked. “You aren’t even mildly curious as to why I can’t see into that dark corner of your mind?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know that it’s any great mystery. If I don’t actually remember it myself, then why should you be able to see it?”
He gave me a knowing look. “Because the memory’s in there. Nothing that happened to you damaged your memory itself—you’ve just repressed it with frightening ferocity.”
I scowled at him. “I was drugged to the gills the whole time I was at the hospital! I don’t think it’s unusual that I wouldn’t have much memory of the time.”
I had just turned thirteen when I was diagnosed with encephalitis, a rare but potentially life-threatening inflammation of the brain. I’d been suffering from headaches and fever and a stiff neck, and my parents had rushed me to the hospital fearing that I had the much more common meningitis. By the time I was admitted, I was delirious, and I don’t remember a thing from that time until I got out of the hospital.
I’d spent more than a week at The Healing Circle, much of the time on a ventilator, fighting for my life. My parents told me I was unconscious throughout most of it, and that when I was conscious I suffered from delusions and hallucinations. The doctors determined that I’d gotten sick from a mosquito bite. Unbelievable how much trouble such a tiny insect can cause.
Yeah, there were times when the idea that I’d lost a whole week of my life as if it never existed was freaky and strange. But most of the time it seemed easy to explain away.
Lugh looked like he was deep in thought, but of course he didn’t let the conversation die a natural death.
“I don’t know if I can explain it to you in a way you’d understand,” he said. “Maybe you have to be able to see as intimately into another’s mind as I can for it to make sense. But believe me, whatever’s going on with your memory is not normal, and it’s not just because of drugs. You were drugged when Raphael tricked you into summoning me. I can feel a…blank spot, for lack of a better term, in your memory from where the drugs damaged it. The time you were at the hospital isn’t blank, it’s walled off. There’s a difference.” He licked his lips as if nervous. “Something happened to you in that hospital. Something your subconscious is desperate to forget.”
