B00AO57VOY EBOK (11 page)

Before I could say a word,
she was gone, taking the weird warmth of her energy with her.  For a second, I
just stared at the place where she had been, a bitter-tasting flood of guilt
turning my stomach.  She was right.  I loved Nathan and he was in pain.  And
what had I done?  I had looked at him with horror because I’d gotten a dose of
reality, had backed away from him and left him with no one to comfort him as he
told that awful tale.  Nathan never would have done that to me.

I closed the distance I had
put between us and cupped his face in my hands, lifting his face back to mine. 
The pain in his eyes was enough to suck the breath out of me.  Very slowly,
giving him time to pull away if he wanted to, I pressed a light kiss to his
lips.  His sigh of relief as his arms closed around me made me feel that much
worse.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I
whispered, pulling away from him.  When he opened his mouth to protest, I
placed my fingertips over his lips.  “No, Nathan.  It wasn’t.”

I saw a whole range of
emotions cross his features.  Pain, confusion, anger, relief—they  were all clearly
portrayed on his perfect face.  And love.  Love so deep and powerful that I
felt
it as his eyes searched my face.  When I tried to move my fingers, he
caught my hand and kissed my fingertips before placing my hand on his chest,
directly over his heart. 

My heart.  Because I
realized in that moment that I really did hold it in my hands.

“Ember, why don’t you go get
dressed?” Grams suggested softly, breaking the moment between us.  I turned to
look at her and she smiled gently.  “I’d like to talk to Nate alone for a few
minutes.”

“Yeah, good idea,” I
murmured, giving Nathan a quick kiss and starting to back away from him
slowly.  “I have to meet Kim anyway.”

“Ember—” Grams began.

“We, I mean,” I cut her off,
winking at Nathan who smiled at me like I’d just given him a gift.  It was
beautiful, that smile.  “
We
have to go meet Kim.  Don’t worry, Grams. 
Nathan will take care of me.”

I didn’t give her another
chance to protest.  Turning on my heel, I practically ran out of the kitchen.  A
thousand and one questions went through my mind as I dug through the closet for
something to wear.  What had turned Bastian from a hotheaded jerk into a
demon?  How was I supposed to get rid of him for good?  What was up with my
curiously-warm new pulse-impaired friend from the beyond?  Questions I didn’t
have a chance of answering without a stack of research material and a tutor.

While
I waited for the water to get hot in the shower, I examined myself in the
mirror.  My hair was a tangled mess and I was as pale as death, but somehow I
looked prettier than I had the day before.  I decided it was my eyes.  I looked
older, more mature.  I
felt
older, more confident, stronger even.  I
felt like I could face anything.

When
the shower was full of steam, I stripped out of my wrinkled pajamas and stepped
beneath the hot spray, adjusting it until it was the perfect temperature.  When
it felt like the water was getting hotter rather than cooler, I frowned and
adjusted the knobs again.  It didn’t seem to be working, though.  Instead, the
shower just kept getting hotter until it was uncomfortable. 

“Well,
that’s what you get for liking your showers hot, Em,” I grumbled to myself.

I
guess I should be more careful what I wish for.

It was
about then that my back got hit with a blast of scalding hot water.  Gasping in
pain, I reached for the shower door while grabbing the towel I had draped over
it.  I pushed once and then again, but the door was jammed and the spray was
only getting hotter.  I tried to turn the shower off, but the taps were no
longer working.  Thinking fast, I reached up to adjust the showerhead to spray
against the wall rather than me, but the metal was too hot to touch.  I
hurriedly wrapped the towel around me, hoping to deflect some of the water from
my skin, but it just seemed to make it worse. 

Then,
as I started to cry from the pain of the hot liquid melting my skin off, I saw
a form begin to materialize in the steam.  It was nothing but a blob, at first,
but it quickly took on the shape of a muscular male form.  Then, just as my
pain-fogged mind began to make sense of the phenomenon, Jack’s face appeared in
the steam.  He moved right up next to the glass, the smile on his face so chillingly
evil that I quickly backed away—right into the hot spray from the shower. 

 “Nathan!”
I screamed as the scalding water began to sear the skin from my neck and
shoulders and trace burning paths down my arms and chest, knowing if I didn’t
get some help I wasn’t getting out of that shower with all of my skin. 
“Grams!  Help me!”

Bastian
turned toward the sound as Nathan called my name from the other side of the
bathroom door and then turned back to me, his face such a mask of hatred that I
felt a chill regardless of the heat melting my skin off.

“You’re
mine,” he hissed, his sneering face almost pressed to the glass of the shower
door.  “This was a warning, Ember.  Next time, I won’t be just playing around.”

He
disappeared just as Nathan crashed through the door followed by Grams.  Nathan
grabbed the handle of the shower door and then cursed aloud when he felt how
hot it was.  He pulled with all his might, but nothing happened.  Grams shoved
him out of the way and wrapped a towel around it.  With a muttered word I
didn’t catch due to the pain I was in, she jerked the door open.

The second the door opened,
the water shut off.  I collapsed into Grams outstretched arms and then screamed
when they closed around my back.  She immediately adjusted her grip, but the
damage had already been done.

 Quickly, and as gently as
he could, Nathan swept me into his arms and rushed into his room, laying me on
the bed and helping me to roll onto my stomach as I sobbed and writhed in
pain.  Grams perched on the side of the bed next to me and held her hands over
my screaming back.  Nathan took up position on my other side, taking my hand in
a futile effort to comfort me, his expression one of confusion and fear.

Gradually, degree by
excruciating degree, Grams began to draw the heat from my boiled skin as I lay
shuddering beneath her hands, my teeth clenched to trap the screams that were
fighting to get loose.  Finally, though, the pain lessened and I was able to
think coherently again.

“How b-bad is it?” I
stammered out when Grams removed her hands and pulled the soft cotton sheet
over me.  Even that slight touch was painful, and I feared the worst.

“I have healed most of the
damage,” Grams said, softly.  When I turned to give her a pleading look,
wondering why she couldn’t heal it the way she had healed my leg the last time Bastian
had gotten the drop on me, she stroked my hair and smiled apologetically. 
“There is no permanent damage, sweetheart.  You’re very lucky we were here. 
You will feel like you have a bad sunburn for the next couple of days, but I
will make you a salve to help with the…discomfort.”

Discomfort?   That
had
to
be some kind of joke.  I could think of a much better description.  Agony.

“Can you tell us what
happened, baby?” Nathan asked, caressing my cheek.  His cool hand felt
refreshingly cold against my burning skin.  My front hadn’t taken the abuse my
back had, but every inch of my skin from head to toe felt extremely tender.

I looked away from him as
anger like I had never known slammed into me like a tidal wave.  Oh, yeah.  I
could tell them what had happened.  Bastian.  It was always him.  It was always
going to
be
him.

I was going to get that
psychotic bastard if it was the last thing I did.

I can’t be sure what Grams
put in that salve of hers, but it worked like a charm—no pun intended.  From
the second she began to apply it to my skin, the awful burning began to ease
and I was finally able to unclench my teeth.  The cooling sensation seeped into
my pores and brought me my first
real
glimmer of relief.  She then
dressed me in a paper thin nightgown and pulled the covers back over me. 

I didn’t sleep worth a damn
that night.  First, I was afraid to close my eyes for fear Bastian would find
another way to get to me.  Grams had been horrified when I told her what
happened in the shower.  Her protection charm had failed, and I had seen the
frightened look she exchanged with Nathan before she could hide it from me. 
She immediately went to work on stronger spell, but I didn’t hold out much hope
that it was going to be any better at keeping the demonic little shit away from
me than the first one had been.

The fact that Grams’ charm
had failed bothered me.  But, more importantly, it seemed to really bother
Grams
. 
That charm had been keeping me safe for more than a month.  Why would it
conveniently fail just in time for Bastian to catch me in the shower and boil
me like a lobster? 

But it was the hushed conversation
I’d happened to overhear between Nathan and Grams when they thought I was
asleep that really had my nerves on edge.

“Someone’s helping him,
Shea,” Nathan had whispered as soon as he’d thought I was sleeping soundly. 
“You know it and so do I.  There aren’t many witches around here who are
powerful enough to break through the kind of spells you keep putting on her. 
That kind of narrows down the choices, don’t you think?”

“What are you implying,
Nate?” Grams asked sharply, her voice suddenly little more than a hiss.

“I’m not implying anything,”
he told her.  I could almost hear the shrug in his tone.  “However, I do find
it strange that your protection charm failed
this morning
.  And Ember’s
necklace disappeared while she was at school, Shea.  Surely even you can see a
pattern forming here.”

Translation:  We had a
traitor in our midst.  And Nathan believed it was Dragon Lady Cantrell.

Yeah, because my life wasn’t
complicated enough.  Let’s add my English Lit teacher trying to kill me. 
Sure.  Why not?

And if that wasn’t enough to
keep a girl awake, there was the hot vampire sleeping next to me.  Nathan was
wrapped around me like he was trying to become another appendage.  He was
creative about it, too.  It seemed like every part of our bodies were touching
but he had somehow managed not to touch any of my burnt skin.

 I spent half the night
trying to figure out my feelings for him.  He deserved better than I was giving
him.  He deserved for me to give him all of my heart, not just the part I felt
I could survive losing if he changed his mind.  And he deserved my trust, I
knew he did, but there was that nagging doubt in the back of my mind that I
couldn’t shake.    

When I couldn’t take lying
there anymore, I began to gently extricate myself from the hold he had on me,
feeling a sudden need to put some space between us before I began to bawl like
a baby.  It wasn’t easy, but I finally managed to wiggle out of his grasp.  I
breathed a sigh of relief when the only discomfort I felt was a sensation like
my skin had been stretched way too tight.  It wasn’t a pleasant
feeling—especially when it started to itch like mad—but it was definitely
better than the excruciating pain I had felt earlier.

I slid from beneath the
covers and put on the robe Grams had laid at the foot of the bed.  Silently
praying that Nathan wouldn’t wake up, I tiptoed out of the room.  I needed some
space with no one else in it.  I needed some time to think, something I
couldn’t do with him distracting me. 

I stopped in the hall and
glanced through the door of my own room—or the room that would have been mine
if I had been able to pull myself away from Nathan.  Grams was sound asleep,
her lips turned up in a smile.  I wished I could feel that kind of peace.  But,
there wasn’t anything in my life that was peace-inspiring at the moment. 
Confusing?  Terrifying?  Maddening?  Yeah, those things I had.  Peaceful?  Not
even frigging close.  With a soft sigh, I closed the door and continued down
the hall to the kitchen.

I got a bottle of water from
the refrigerator and walked to the back door.  It was one of those glass
numbers and I could clearly see the backyard from where I was.  It was a
beautiful night and I suddenly wanted to be out in it, wanted to feel the
chilly breeze against my skin as it rustled the dry leaves of the surrounding
trees.

I opened the door and
stepped out onto the flagstone patio, my only thoughts of moonlight and fresh
air.  There was a wrought iron table and cushioned chairs to my left.  I took
my water there and sat down, looking around me at the beautiful landscaping of
the yard beneath the silvery light of the moon.