“Yeah.” He shifted uncomfortably, exhibiting some of the self-consciousness issues she remembered. “I’m not very good at shielding.”
She chuckled. “Me either, obviously.”
He cocked his head to the side. “You weren’t there this morning.”
“Oh, um…” She fiddled with the tie on her sweatpants, picking at the loose threads. “No. I was with my uncle in the infirmary.”
“I’m sorry.” His voice was sincere, his eyes soft with sympathy. As if he were offering condolences or something, which just made her mad. Aaron wasn’t dead. “It’s all right. He’s going to be okay, just…”
She gulped, blinking to clear her vision. What was she saying? He wasn’t going to be okay. He was going to be scarred permanently because of what had happened, worse than her father’s scars, even. And like before, this was all her fault too. True, no one had said it, but after the dressing down both Gabby and her father had given her the other day, it didn’t take major math skills to figure out that her little excursion so closely followed by this attack…
I led them here. Me and my cursed gift. Just like it was my gift that led them to me and Daddy that first time.
Memories surfaced. The dark night. The man who wasn’t a man stalking a much younger Annie as she ran through the woods. And the dogs. No, not dogs, creatures that resembled them but with bloodied fangs, scaly gray skin, and oily black eyes. She’d been cornered, climbed a tree. The dog-creatures snapping at the base. The man had stopped behind them, his head tipped oddly as he lifted his head to stare at her. She’d wanted to scream, but couldn’t find her breath. Until she’d heard her father’s frantic calls in the distance. Too far. She’d known he was too far. But the storm that had rolled in wasn’t.
“Annie?”
She leapt up. “I need to go inside.”
“Oh…all right.” He stood too, blocking her way.
Of course, he wanted his coat.
She shrugged out of the jacket, offering it to him.
He took it, pulling it on, then stood there with his hands planted on his utility belt.
“It was nice talking to you, Annie.” He glanced over his shoulder at the window, then concentrated his gaze on her again, his mouth twisted up almost wistfully as he added, “It’s too bad we didn’t have more time.”
“More time? We’ll see each other again next class, remember?”
He just nodded, that same wistful smile on his face.
Weird. She shook her head, shifting so as to get around him. He twisted, his gaze still locked on her. The movement brought him in line with the light casting out from the window and she gasped, reaching for him.
“Ryan, what happened to your neck?” she asked, pushing back his jacket to get a better look at the vicious looking wound.
“You know, it’s a funny story.” His smile slipped, his features closing down, though his eyes never left her.
Her gut sunk, warning bells skittering up her spine. Hunter. Prey.
“Too bad I don’t have time to tell you about it.”
She barely heard the whisper of sound above his words, just the click and scrape of a blade sliding out of its holster. She drew in a breath to scream even as she struck her arms out in a cross defensive motion. One arm met air, but the other caught his wrist, and the knife meant for her throat skidded by her ear, a near miss. Unfortunately she hadn’t seen the second attack. Before she could scream or run or do anything else, something hit her in her right side. Pain ripped through her, her body crumpling onto the roof as she began to convulse. Through the haze of agony she heard her captor laugh, his voice rolling through the night in multiple layers.
Chapter 16
Valin lay as still as he could beneath a sleeping Gabby, staring at the crooked and chipped tiles of her ceiling as he siphoned through the volatile emotions riding him like a ghost horse. He hadn’t bargained for this, though damn if he could figure out what this was.
After rejecting his own declaration of love, her silent plea for him to love her had torn his heart. Not only did he sense she didn’t believe herself worthy of that love, but the overshadowing fear of being hurt had left him wanting to lash out at someone. But who was there to do so? Her mother was long buried, her maker Christos dead too. And though a mere glimpse at some of her memories showed dozens more worthy of his wrath, to seek them out for the sole purpose of revenge would teach Gabby nothing of moving on and letting go of the past.
So he’d concentrated on loving her. And as the day had worn on, turning to night, she’d opened to him. Her body, her mind, her soul. The uninhibited intensity with which she’d showed him her unspoken love had outdone him.
He should be happy. If nothing else he should be purring with satisfaction by the number of times she’d come undone in his arms. But he wasn’t. Something was off. Something that had his heart palpitating and his nerves riding on edge. What was it?
He’d thought at first it was simply a sense of incompleteness. He hadn’t asked her to complete the mate bond with him yet, but that would only account for a sense of nervousness…not this soul-consuming sense of dread. It was like his soul knew something his mind was unable or unwilling to grasp.
He glanced down at Gabby’s hair spread out over his torso, her head resting on his chest, and her hand tucked in tight to his armpit. She looked tired. And though he supposed he should expect that after a long night and subsequent day of lovemaking, they had certainly taken more than their share of naps between their marathons of sex.
And that was it, the long night then subsequent day of lovemaking had done nothing to ease the lines around her eyes, and worse, despite the number of times she drank from his vein, there was no change on the darkness that stained her soul.
You’re going to lose her, just like you lost Angeline.
He swallowed, closing his eyes against the brutal barrage of images. Another time, another bed, only it was Angeline lying beside him, his hand tucked possessively at the base of her distended belly. They’d woken together, laughing at Peanut’s antics in the womb and enjoyed a few moments of happy bliss before he’d risen to start his day. It had been the last morning they’d had together.
He hadn’t been able to save Angeline then and now here lay Gabby, still aging, dying with each breath she took secure in his arms. His veins iced over, his breathing becoming ragged with thoughts of the long cold years of darkness that had followed Angeline’s death. He couldn’t relive that. He would not, could not fail again. Yet here he was, holding Gabby, and he couldn’t…Shit. Shit! He couldn’t breathe for the tightness in his chest. There was only one way to escape such pain. One place. There he could regroup. There he could forget. If only for a little while.
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, shifting into the soothing darkness of the shade.
Gabby lay motionless upon the cot, the only movement that of her hand fisting in the cooling sheets beneath them. Valin was gone. She’d woken, alarmed, at the racing of his heart beneath her ear, then before she could react she’d been blindsided by his turbulent thoughts of his lost mate. Angeline. Oh, how she wished she could have shut his memories of that woman off, but she couldn’t, not after feeding from him so many times. Five to be exact, if you counted the little taste on the rooftop the other night. The last had been after he carried her back to her room and proceeded to teach her that sex—at least with him—could be the best, most perfect, and yes, erotic, thing in the world. To let go like that, acting purely on instinct and need…His blood had tasted so good, and she’d reveled in the bloom of connection between them that came with each drop that hit her tongue. She knew she couldn’t do it again anytime soon. Accelerated healing or not, even his Paladin blood couldn’t sustain her indefinitely. Not without weakening himself. And given the type of constant danger he threw himself at, that was not something she was willing to risk.