Golden's Rule (12 page)

“Huh.” Jaxon twisted his toothpick around and eyed him as if Torque had grown another head. Torque didn’t rise to the bait, but then neither did Jaxon. The vampire reached up and brushed his brown hair off his forehead leisurely, clearly not worried by Torque’s glare.

Finally, Jaxon blew out a breath. “Yeah, well, you take care of yourself, Torque. Sorcha’s not a witch to play with and that sweet little thing we saved has all the markings of one powerful witch. I can’t say, so don’t ask, if she’s a member of the Jade, but hell, man, you know witches, they stick the shit together.”

Torque stayed silent. What could he say? He wanted this particular witch with a need so powerful he’d been in misery these past three days? Hell, he’d been in misery the entire week at the hunting lodge with her. Just kissing Beauty had been better than any sex he’d ever had. Now that he’d had sex with her, he had to wonder what he’d been doing before.

But Sorcha was a minor problem and one he’d face if, or when, he determined Beauty was a member of the Jade Coven. Until then, he needed to figure out what he was doing.

“Are you listening?” Jaxon asked him, sounding irritated.

“Yeah, I’m listening. She’s…different.”

Jaxon drew his eyebrows down into a sharp v. “Different how?”

Torque shrugged and drummed his fingers on the council tabletop. “She’s just not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Because you can’t stop thinking with your dick? Look.” Jaxon held up a hand and shook his head for the immediate glare Torque sent him. “I get it, man. I get it, she is hot, no doubt about it, but look, you’re off your game. Distracted. Hell, when I heard that you’d said no on the raid to the Death Stalker compound, I was like, no way. But hell, man, you did what when we raided those bastards?”

Torque grilled the vampire with a stare. Jaxon simply waited. The evil bastard. “I had dinner with her.”

Jaxon gave him a look as if he’d just proved his case. His blue eyes shifted over Torque like he was reading a book. “Look, have you considered she might be a spy? A DS sent to entice you to not get involved because you are too involved in getting your dick where it shouldn’t go?”

“Fuck off, Jaxon, I’m not stupid, she’s not a DS.” Shit, the vampire was so into conspiracy theories it boggled the mind. Beauty a Death Stalker? No chance.

“Oh, okay, sure, no problem, but yeah, have you fucked her yet?”

Torque surged up and took a swing at Jaxon, missing only because the vampire shifted out of his sight and reappeared with a grin, two inches over to the left with his palms up. “Hey, hey, I’m just trying to make you see the shit you stepped in, buddy, before you track it all over the living room.”

“Beauty is not a Death Stalker. Not everyone is out to get us, man.”

“Yeah, true, true, but let me ask you something.” Jaxon paused and Torque fisted his hands until his knuckles popped. “Settle down, bud. Look, how long have I known you?”

Thrown by the new direction, Torque shrugged. “A few decades, maybe, why?”

“Well, man, I know your routines. You been to other women since you met, what did you call her? Beauty?”

“Jax, you’re begging me to kick your ass.”

The warning went unnoticed except that Jaxon nodded as if Torque had just proved another point. “Right, so you aren’t getting laid and you’re not doing the dirty with Beauty. Have you tried? To go to another? Did it cross your mind as odd that you can’t?”

Torque stayed silent, not even breaking in when Jaxon didn’t wait for an answer and barrelled on through with his direct hit. The vampire’s logic made him pissed and more than a bit worried. He’d not been able to think about touching another, not since he’d found Beauty. What was the vampire getting at?

“Just finish your damn theory.”

“She might be a witch, eh? A witch sent to weaken you. Think about it. I know, because I’m nosey, that your power is linked somehow to the women you have sprinkled all over the globe, so don’t get your boxers in a bind, but look, your power is what keeps you alive. Without it, what are you? Can you even live without it?”

Torque sat down like someone had dropped a two-hundred-pound rock in his arms.

Jaxon spread his big arms and shook his head. “Yeah, think on it, would you? When the shit hits it, I warned you. Gotta go. Hit me up when we’re going Death Stalker-hunting.”

With a knowing laugh, the damn vampire shifted out of the room, leaving Torque alone with his miserable thoughts. Could Beauty be some kind of trap? No one knew of his habits—he shut the thought down. Jaxon knew. The vampire was right, he was a nosey sonofabitch, but he’d also come close to figuring out how Torque survived.

Hell. What the hell.

Did it matter? Did any of this matter? Beauty probably hated him by now.

What woman wouldn’t?

He’d taken her with a sense of ownership. Entitlement. He’d lost it, lost control with her. Yeah, he’d fucked up. He’d taken much more than he should have. He’d forced her to orgasm after orgasm, what male didn’t like that, but with each shudder of release something inside him grew, expanding until he’d been nearly lost. It felt right, simply right in a way he couldn’t name, to give her as much pleasure as he possibly could. Each orgasm, each small tremble of pleasure she experienced fed a need inside him he couldn’t explain.

Jaxon had come close with his guesses. Torque should have been primed for any willing female. As a warlock who fed his magic with sex, after seventy-two hours without a bite, any woman should do.

Torque shot out of his chair and slammed his fist into the wall behind him. The plaster cracked.

Any woman wouldn’t do though. He’d even gone that step. Half of him—hell, more than half of him—shuddered at the mere idea of anyone but Beauty touching him, yet what else was he to do? He couldn’t go to her after not seeing her, calling for three days. He’d texted, but hell, he knew that was just plain wrong. So he’d travelled on a hub to Lebanon where he knew a woman who always wanted quick, hard sex. One look at her sickly thin face and fake breasts and he’d known he’d never be able to get hard, not for her, not for anyone other than Beauty, ever again.

The thought freaked him the hell out enough to piss him off. He fisted his throbbing hand and flexed it again.

What if Jaxon was right? What if Beauty was weakening him?

He needed sex. He didn’t want it. Hell, of course he liked sex, who didn’t? With Beauty, he wanted to sink in and stay. But hell, he used a great deal of magic, each spell he cast cost, demanding payment. He knew he needed to keep his level in the green, and he banked enough from one night with Beauty he still registered in the green, but for how long?

This one particular woman with her bright green eyes, heart-shaped face, soft pink lips and long sun-kissed hair stirred him to the point of pain.

Stirred.

Exactly. She stirred him, his gut felt like she’d swirled those small perfect fingers in his soul, turning all he was, all he knew, into a maze of emotions he couldn’t decipher.

Was she using a spell to tie him to her? Then what? Leave?

His temper, the anger he’d not felt since meeting her, burned bright, growing as more and more of what Jaxon said took root and grew.

He pulled out his phone and flipped it open. He texted the number he’d given her. His stomach tightened in anger. The scar crossing his chest burned for a moment, reminding him of all he’d lost to the Death Stalkers. He couldn’t afford attachments. Even if Beauty wasn’t trying to ensnare him with a spell, she’d already distracted him.

He’d go to her. He could do that—simply go to her like he did all the past women. His magic would be fed and he’d shut down the other desires. He had no need in his life for warmth and comfort. No need for a woman who looked at him with trust and possibly more in her green eyes.

He couldn’t have more.

His anger burst hotter, strengthening his resolve. If she played with him, she’d soon learn her mistake.

Chapter Seven

Beauty slowly blinked her eyes open, feeling sick to her stomach and more than a little freezing. Wait, freezing? Why was she so cold?

The memory of her anxiety, and decision to go for a run surfaced above her confusion. She’d cut into the woods surrounding the cabin, feeling powerful and free for the first time since Torque had left—Torque. Then, she’d hit something.

She lifted her head from the frozen ground, rubbed her eyes and looked around her. It was dark out. The black outline of trees surrounded her, but nothing even remotely looking like solid brick wall.

Disgruntled, she sat up. So, what had she hit? A spell perhaps. She still felt a zip of something along her skin, enough to make the hairs on the back of her neck tingle.

Torque had mentioned protections surrounding the place. She remembered feeling a danger but her phone vibrated against her back pocket, breaking her thoughts.

Torque.

At least he wasn’t here. Humiliation heated her neck and face. She knew what he’d think. Why was it so perfectly clear how little he thought of her, now, after hitting her head? Too bad the new understanding hadn’t knocked some of her memory back into place. Just to be certain she tried to recall anything beyond a week ago when she’d woken to a pounding headache and Torque’s worried face. Nothing, not one glimpse of anything came to her. Not a name, not a memory, nothing.

Why would it be that easy?

Besides, he might not think so little of her. Anyone new here wouldn’t see his spells, that was what they were for, protection.

Torque.

She tried hard not to get excited, but that tiny bubble of happiness grew when she saw Torque’s message.

‘Been held up. Be there soon’.

Been held up? Held up by what? The cell phone police? Aliens? There was no reason not to text, she knew that. Well, there was one reason, he didn’t think to because she hadn’t crossed his mind.

Stupid. She was stupid. She wanted to race back to the cabin, take a bath, and get all sexy for him.

No. No, she shouldn’t. Couldn’t. She got up and started walking. She had to make sure he didn’t think this was okay. Not cool at all. In fact, she felt a bit like a prisoner out here and needed to tell him that too.

Maybe she should go. He didn’t need to kick her in the butt for her to see her way to the door, right?

She stopped in her tracks. Go and never see Torque again.

Torque filled her life. His handsome face, white teeth flashing in a grin as he held himself up over at her, still breathless from sex. The wink he’d given her when he’d caught her staring at the way the firelight caught his face while he read. She’d blushed. Dinners. Breakfasts. Lunches. In the kitchen, study, snowy patio. Silences when they read snuggled up next to each other in front of the fireplace. The feel of his body, hard yet so perfect curled around hers. His warmth. His laugh. The smell of him after a shower. The scent of his big jacket when he wrapped it around her while they walked in the woods. Kisses that lasted for hours. His lips. The feel of his silky hair. The rough caress of his whiskered jaw along her lips.

Torque filled all those empty places she had. There were just so many, too. She shouldn’t have let him occupy every inch of her with him though. She could see that now.

What did a person do with something like this? She had no one and nowhere to go. He’d become essential. Why had she allowed that?

She leapt up on a fallen tree trunk and walked quickly down to the end and jumped free to head down the steep incline above the cabin.

They’d simply have to talk about the other night and if he looked uneasy or she picked up any weird vibe, she would have to tell him that she couldn’t stay here any longer. She’d explain how she felt, strong, able to take care of herself and ready to stop waiting on her memory.

She wove around a small sapling and the cabin came into view. The dark cabin. He still wasn’t back. The relief shouldn’t make her heart catch, should it? She shook her head and kept going, heading quickly down the frozen hillside.

Or, if he acted odd she’d simply let him know it was okay, that she needed to go now anyway. Maybe make something up. Maybe pretend she remembered something so he could get out of this situation and not feel responsible for her. That way she wouldn’t have to see the censure in his eyes when she explained she wasn’t in need of saving.

She was a witch. Witches had covens. She felt her power now, the simmering of it just there, growing closer each day. She could go to the Immortal Council and ask for aid. He must have known this, but he had never offered it as a solution. Was that because he didn’t want to let her go?

Yeah, that must be it, idiot. It’s obvious he can’t live without you.

Feeling even worse, she opened the back door that led right into the homely little kitchen and quickly shut it. She toed her shoes off—shoes he’d bought her—and shed her jacket, another gift from him.

She didn’t feel cold, at least not on the surface. Inside a chill seeped outward. He’d texted because he didn’t want to talk to her. Right?

Ah, who knows? You can think about it all night and still not know.

The fire had died down when she reached the bedroom. Would he want to sleep with her?

Danu, what is wrong with me? I just decided to leave, not stay!

Two steps inside the bedroom she spun and nearly screamed. Torque sat silently in one of the big chairs by the fireplace, his body nearly hidden in the dark corner of the room. The embers of the fire cast an odd, almost frightening appearance to his features—almost devilish. His eyes showed though, bright and glittering. He’d slouched down in the huge armchair, his butt half off the seat, long legs wide, and his hands twined together over his lean stomach. He was shirtless, she noticed with a thrill.

“Torque! You frightened me. I thought you were still gone.”

“Where were you?”

A shiver travelled down her spine at the harshness in his tone. Suddenly his emotions hit like a flood. They hit so hard she stumbled back a step, clutched at the small table next to the bed, and fought for air. Anger, pain, fear, and something more, something like panic swept over her—from him. Her mind struggled uselessly to unravel the torrent.