The Reunited (31 page)

Make a noise. Groan or something. Need him to focus on you, but don’t get out of the car.

An award. After all of this, she deserved an award.

It wasn’t that hard to groan. Hell, she was back in the one place she never wanted to return. So close to the monster she hated above all others . . .

The groan sounded feeble and weak to her own ears.

But Joss heard it.

“Hmmm. Sounds like she’s waking up. If you’re going to sit around with your thumb up your ass, I should probably dose her again.”

“No.”

A few seconds later, Joss’s thoughts brushed her own.
He gives me the money and starts to take you into the house and it’s done.

Sounded so easy.

Jones and the rest are five minutes away.

She wondered if he was guessing at that or if he knew.

I know. Trust me . . .

Sighing, she tucked her chin against her chest.

Trust him. He made it sound so simple. So easy. And it was anything but. Blowing out a breath, she blocked out everything. Time to focus. Time to think. Everything was coming down to this . . .

All too soon, she heard the door open. Felt hands on her.
Flash, flash, flash.
Minton. The bastard. Worried . . . he was worried. Whitmore had killed more than a few people in the past few hours, and he was no longer certain he was indispensable. But he was still cocky, still determined. And still greedy. She felt the rush of it all through his touch, saw the memories. A body lying dead at his feet.
“You’re certain he didn’t say anything?”

Minton shaking his head.
“As certain as I can be. He’s a pussy. Would talk if you paid him or hurt him. I just hurt him.”

Hurt her—

The flash ended with that thought. That was what he wanted to do.

Hurt.
Her
.

“Are you awake, Ella?”

Lifting her head, she stared at Whitmore.

“Good . . .”

By the car, Joss stood there. Unconcerned. Like he wasn’t bothered by a damn thing in life. If she didn’t have the warm feel of his thoughts present in her brain, the burn of his anger, she just might have been a little disturbed by the very apparent lack of concern on his face.

“Let me go,” she snarled, jerking against Minton’s hands.

Whitmore came up to her.

She knew what he was planning. As he drew near, she sagged in Minton’s grip, forcing him to adjust how he was holding her. When he did, she managed to smash her foot on his instep—under her booted foot, she heard the crunch of bone and it made her smile. His bellow was almost like a chorus of angel song, and when she drove her elbow back into his gut, she loved hearing the way his breath gusted out of him in shock.

She didn’t get away, but she didn’t intend to.

It was the need to fight.

Even as Minton dragged her toward the house, sucking in air, some of the bones in his foot broken, she continued to jerk against him. “Let me go, you twat.” She shot Whitmore a glare. “You can’t keep me here.”

“Yes. I can.” He gave Joss a narrow look. “We’re done now, Sellers.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Joss continue to stand there.

She thought, maybe, she heard a car engine over the rush and roar of blood in her ears. Jerking against Minton, she twisted again, trying again to get away as he dragged her over the threshhold.
“Let me go,”
she snarled.

“Not in a million . . .”

Minton’s voice trailed off.

She saw him from the corner of her eye as he turned to look at her. But he was looking
past
her.

“What . . .”

“Let her go,” Whitmore said, his voice soundless.

Minton didn’t respond.

“Let her go
now
.”

She hit the floor so suddenly, the hard marble was biting into her knees. With a serene smile, she stared up at him. “Too late,” she said softly.

Then, swinging out with her legs, she kicked his own out from under him, knocking him down before she scrambled outside.

Minton reached for her.

“Don’t,” Whitmore snapped.

As she scrambled upright, she watched from the corner of her eye and saw the black cars driving in through the gates. Five of them. Wow. She was kind of curious about the time.

Had it been five minutes?

She looked back at Whitmore, letting all the rage she felt show on her face. “I told myself I’d see this through, you know. No matter what. It was a promise I’d made myself.”

Hatred flashed through his eyes. But as he rose to his feet, his face was calm, his voice cool. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but nothing will come of it, Ella. Nothing.”

She smiled as she stood.

“Want to bet?”

TWENTY-NINE

A
S
she walked away, Patrick stared at her.

Walking away . . .

To
him
.

No. Fucking
no
.

As the cars came to a halt, Whitmore walked quietly over to the elegant writing desk and pulled open a drawer. The baby Glock tucked inside fit neatly in the palm of his hand. He’d used it a few hours ago to kill Lydia. Now, he’d use it to kill Ella.

That fucker . . . his name wasn’t Sellers. He knew that much.

But his name didn’t matter.

Minton glanced at the gun, then at him. “What are you going to—”

It was the last thing he ever said.

As he fell lifeless to the ground, Patrick positioned himself at the door.

All this time, he’d known Ella was the one for him. The only one. And now she was walking away—

Did you really think I’d let you leave—

“No,” he murmured. “You won’t leave.”

“Drop the gun!”

The voices came bellowing at him from everywhere.

Oddly, he was aware of a strange sensation of cold, too. Very cold. Drifting along his spine, crowding into his mind.

You won’t leave
, he thought, pointing the gun at Ella. She turned, staring at him.

The big, rough-looking bastard was rushing for her.

All around him, lights started to flicker.

The voices in his mind raged louder.

“You can’t have her,” Patrick said.

He shifted the gun, pointed it at the son of a bitch responsible.

A blinding pain tore through his brain as he squeezed the trigger. It increased. Swearing, he screamed, “You can’t have her!”

*   *   *

C
ROUCHED
on top of the stone fence, hidden by the low-hanging branches, Tucker fought against the pull of his power. On a day like this, it was even harder than normal. Overcast, the thunderheads piling up overhead, and every now and then, lightning would flicker. He could feel it calling out to him . . .
play with me, Tucker . . . play with me . . .

It was tempting, so tempting, and here he was, with no time
to
play, no time to toy with the lure of all that crazy, crazy power. So seductively sweet.

Once the rain hit, all that lovely, lovely energy would be gone. It was a high like nothing else, and even more powerful than normal because of how dry it had been . . . the air was charged, charged and ready for him. So tempting, too easy to give in to it completely, feeling along the line of life and giving in to the urge to play . . . his kind of playing could lead to death. He was already playing with death. Life.

He could feel all of them. Every person around him. All of their energy. All of their lives . . . they called to him like a siren’s song.

But that wasn’t where he needed to go. He couldn’t pull their energy into him. He needed to shove it
out
.

Bit by bit. He bounced from one mind to another. The most powerful mind wasn’t the one he needed to fuck with. No, the mind he gravitated toward screeched and twisted, black with ugliness. Automatically, Tucker wanted to pull away but he didn’t.

He jabbed at the man’s mind. Hard.

Felt him flinch. Not enough, not enough. Tucker had a way of knowing when he’d pushed hard enough, if he needed to go a little harder . . . and he needed to go a little harder.

“What are you doing?”

The woman’s voice cut into the silence he’d wrapped around himself.

Hissing, he tore his attention away from the task at hand. If he had been anybody important, he wouldn’t have been so careless.

As it was, he heard a harsh, panicked scream—male—coming from the big-ass mansion, one that ended too abruptly, and he didn’t have to guess who it was. Snarling, he looked down, saw her standing on the ground just under the stone wall where he crouched.

It was the beautiful blonde he’d seen just days ago.

Back when this was supposed to just be a favor he was doing for Dru.

Now she had her head tipped back as she studied him, a curious look in her eyes, a smile on her lips.

She was so damned beautiful, Tucker thought, a little dazed.

So damned beautiful.

Something he hadn’t felt in too long burned through his veins.

It wasn’t the fiery burn of his gift. Wasn’t the lure of electricity crackling through the wires or snapping inside the mind of some unsuspecting victim.

Lust. Plain and simple.

Tucker couldn’t even remember the last time he’d felt lust.

It almost laid him low.

As she reached up to lay a hand on his ankle, he jerked his foot away.

“Don’t,” he said shortly.

He couldn’t do contact unprepared. And he suspected if he did contact with her, it wouldn’t matter if he was prepared or not, not considering the way his blood was already buzzing in his veins.

“What are you doing?” she asked again.

Drawing his leg up to his chest, he focused back on the house. That one mind, so loud and chaotic with its rage, had stumbled to a halt after Tucker had clumsily severed his link. “In the market to buy a house,” he said flippantly. “Since I figure this one will be on the market soon, I’m taking a look-see.”

She was quiet. Then, blowing out a sigh, she moved over and leaned against the stone wall, staring toward the house. “You know, it won’t be long before he has agents and cops and shit crawling all over this place. If you don’t want to get caught up in that, you might want to do your house hunting at a later time.” She angled a look up at him, tucking those dense, exotic braids back and studying him with a queer little smile.

That smile said . . .
you’re not fooling me
.

Tucker didn’t like that smile.

“Jones can handle this,” she said softly.

He continued to stare at the house. “I don’t know who in the fuck
Jones
is.” He had a friend in there. He didn’t have many, but Drucella Chapman was one of them and she’d gone back to face a poisonous snake.

In the back of his mind, he felt it . . . that sluggish brain rousing, so black and ugly and awful.

Full of rage. Anger. The need to hurt.

A snarl peeled his lips back from his teeth. He shouldn’t have thrown it off so soon.

Pressing the heel of one gloved hand against his temple, he stared at the house, focused, locked in on the brain.

*   *   *

D
RU
was almost to the car when she heard it.

Her brain didn’t want to process it.

Her body already had.

A gunshot.

The hairs on her arms, the nape of her neck stood on end, and she didn’t recall running, but she was.

The air was tight—charged the way it was right before a bad storm, and although it looked like rain, she suspected this was more. A lot more. A thunderstorm had never felt like this.

If lightning had struck in that very moment, she wouldn’t have been surprised. Not surprised at all.

The car—so close—

And then, the only thing she was close to was the ground. And Joss. Trapped between him and the hard-packed earth.

He was still . . . so very still.

Time slowed to a crawl.

Everything merged together . . . voices . . . places. People. Dreams and reality.

Don’t let him take you away again . . .

You must run . . .

As his weight crushed the breath out of her, shock froze her. For one very, very brief moment. She stared up at his face. “No.”

He didn’t move.

With a strength she didn’t think she had, she shoved him off her, half wiggling, half pulling, until she worked free of him. And he didn’t move. Crouched over him, her hair falling in a tangle, she cradled his head in her hands.

“Joss,” she whispered. “Wake up.”

Nothing . . . that harsh, unrelenting face, so still.

Their voices came to her through a hazed fog.
“.
 . . 
put the gun down . . .”

Patrick’s voice, barely sounding like him, as he shouted,
“You don’t walk away . . .”

“Put down the gun and come out.”

Blinking, Dru looked down. Joss’s gun was still tucked inside his holster. Too big for her hands, but she didn’t care. Slipping it free, she paused a minute to stroke his face. “I really wish you’d found me a couple of years ago,” she whispered, her voice thick and broken.

As she lifted the heavy gun, she focused. She couldn’t see Patrick. He was hiding behind the door, miserable twat. But she didn’t need to see him.

The cold, ugly weight of his presence was like a stain on her soul.

“I promised I’d bloody you.”

Then she squeezed the trigger.

A split second later somebody saw what she was doing.

But it was too late.

She’d already fired.

And before the gun was torn away from her, she saw what she needed to see . . . Patrick’s body, half sprawled in the doorway. His face turned toward her. Eyes open, but empty. Lifeless.

The enormous ache in her heart ripped open and a sob tore out of her. Huddling over Joss’s body, she hugged him.
Damn you . . you told me not to let him take me away. But what about you?

Curling her fingers into his shirt, instinctively seeking out the warmth of his skin, she came across something else entirely. Before her mind could process that, though, hands gripped her arms.

“Ease back a minute, girl,” a soft, familiar voice murmured in her ear.

“Let me go,” she snarled, jerking away from Tucker. They were going to take him away. Panic settled inside her. They couldn’t take him away, not yet, not yet—

But there they were, gathering around Joss’s big, still body, and Tucker was hauling her away, and she didn’t even have the strength to fight him.
No, no, no
—

“I will . . . in a minute. Come on, honey. Let them help him.”

“Let me
go
 . . . help . . .” She stopped and went slack in Tucker’s arms as the blond guy jerked open Joss’s shirt, revealing the black body armor.

“He had on body armor, honey,” Tucker murmured, absently stroking her arm. “Calm down a minute. Breathe, just breathe. He’s okay.”

“But . . .” She shook her head. He was so still. Not moving. “No.” Squeezing her eyes closed, she turned her head away, afraid to hope. Afraid to think.

“He’s fine, Chapman. I can feel it—the shock of it just knocked him out, and he’s going to hurt like a motherfuck, but he’s fine.”

*   *   *

H
E
could feel her.

Her hands on his face.

Her thoughts, furious and full of grief, flooding his mind, battering his shields.

Damn you . . . you told me not to let him take me away. But what about you . . .

He’d like to tell her he wasn’t going anywhere.

And he’d do it, too.

As soon as he could breathe.

Gone . . . She was gone. Everybody’s voices and thoughts raged, and he lost hers in the thick of it. Lost himself in the pain of it, for just a minute, but then the pain, like a dragon, dragged him back into a state of semiawareness and he wanted to scream. Might have carved his chest open just to relieve the agony.

And still she wasn’t there. Dru . . . he just wanted Dru . . .

He’d been shot before, and he was pretty sure it was less painful than taking a hit square in the chest with body armor.

Even unconscious, the pain was snaking into him, eating at him, firing away in his nerve endings . . .

Damn it, you can hear me. I know you can—

She was back.

Summoning what little strength he had, he flung out a hand.

And then she was there. Her hand in his. Tight, strong. Demanding.

Stay away.
That was the one thought he could manage.
Stay the fuck away from Whitmore.

He’s dead,
Dru told him.
Dead and done. And you . . . if you ever scare me like that again, I’ll hurt you. You hear me?

The pain pulled him back into its gaping maw. But it didn’t matter. Dru was there. And she was safe.

And if he could ever manage to wake up . . .