A Touch of Fae (6 page)

Straightening, he pulled himself gently away from Alessandro’s cock then turned in his arms. Kissing Alessandro’s pouty lips gently he whispered, “I love you.”

“And I you,
caro
.” Alessandro smiled gently, replete.

For the first time Rory didn’t immediately begin thinking about Violet again. It wasn’t until he was dry and clothed, heading downstairs for dinner that he thought about her. Actually, when he felt her.

She was upset. There was a discontentment to her being that hadn’t been there in a long time. As he helped himself to a casserole the housekeeper had left, he tried to puzzle out why she was so…despondent. Alessandro came downstairs and Rory handed him the plate he had warmed for him. They settled at the marble counter to eat. Outside the plate glass windows the pine trees swayed in the breeze.

Guilt ate a Rory as he thought of the way he had used Alessandro. His partner knew what he was doing, of course, but it still wasn’t right.

Rory cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, ‘Sandro. I know I’ve been out of it since…Kentucky. I just, I don’t know, didn’t expect to be so knocked off balance by her.”

Without saying her name, he knew Alessandro would understand. And he did.

Humor lightened his partner’s pretty hazel eyes. His dark lashes were still damp from the shower and Rory took a moment to run his thumb over his cheek stubble. Just the sound and the familiarity with which Sandro allowed the touch warmed his heart. He loved this man. He loved him beyond a shadow of a doubt. There was no way on earth he would ever want to hurt him. If Violet was his mate, though, as he was beginning to suspect she was, he didn’t know how he
couldn’t
.

Alessandro turned his stool toward Rory, ignoring his lunch. “
Caro
, I understand. You think she is a part of your world, no?”

Rory was astounded. And humbled. Alessandro had every right to be upset, but he didn’t seem to be.

Sighing, he pursed his lips. “I don’t know. She’s definitely a draw to me. It might just be her Fae ancestry pulling me into protector mode, I don’t know. My senses come alive when I’m around her, same as they used to with old Keegan. But this is more, Sandro. As if I am connected to her.”

“I think, Rory, that you are heading in a direction you have always searched for. How many times have we stopped at that shop over the past ten years? Three? Four? For air in the tires, or new wipers, or some other ridiculous thing.”

Rory nodded, feeling a wash of color under his skin. He didn’t realize he had been so obvious. “I’ve always been drawn there. Her grandfather was a wonderful man, very proud of his heritage. I feel bad that she no longer has him in her life. I constantly wonder who she does have in her life.”

Alessandro nodded. “Yes, I too worry about her. Often.”

This surprised Rory. In his self-absorption he thought he was the only one pining. Had Alessandro felt a connection to her too? He looked at his companion more sharply.

“Really?”

Alessandro nodded his head, running his fingers through his drying hair. The wild waves fell carelessly back. They wouldn’t stay in place until he gelled them into place.

“She has no one there. You felt her body. She was parched for attention and stifled because of it. Jack told us about her years ago. Do you remember what he said?”

Rory wracked his brain but he couldn’t seem to place his friend’s words. He shook his head.

“He said she was like a cactus. Prickly and rough until some attention was paid to her, then she blossomed like the rose that she is. She will wither and die in that town if she stays there.”

Rory had a feeling it was true, but he didn’t know what to do about the situation. He knew exactly why she wasn’t flourishing there. He wondered if she knew.

The fact that Jack had noticed her first rankled. If he didn’t know for a fact that Jack was committed whole-heartedly to his own male partner he would be worried. It made him wonder if other Fae had noticed her as well, hiding out in the little backwoods town. If her natural aura was enough to pull him there several times he was probably not the only one. The thought of somebody else laying claim to her body made his breathing accelerate and his fists clench. No, he wasn’t losing her when he had just found her.

Reining in his emotions, he looked at Alessandro. It was his choice as well. “What do you suggest?”

The Italian gave him a gleaming smile as he leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. “I thought you would never ask,
caro
. Let us go for a drive. I’ll go pack.”

“Fuck!!”

Violet yelled out in pain as the wrench she was trying to crank slipped off the edge of the bolt, letting her right hand slam into an aluminum fan blade. The heavy Snap-On wrench clattered down through the engine and smacked her in the corner of her right eye socket before she could work her other hand around to catch the damn thing. Stars burst in her vision and she gritted her teeth to pant through the pain.

Pulling her hand out of the contorted spot it was in, she was not surprised to see blood running down her wrist from a gash. Looking around her as much as she could she tried to see if maybe she had brought a rag under the car with her. No, of course she hadn’t. The damn thing was bleeding like a stuck pig, too.

Hooking her boot heels in the concrete, she pulled the creeper out from underneath the car and levered herself to her feet. Glancing around the shop, she looked for something clean to wrap around her hand but the box of blue shop towels was empty. Stomping into the office, she looked around there too but was unable to find anything. By now blood was running down her elbow, dripping on the floor. In resignation she stripped off her coveralls and turned them inside out. Pulling the sleeve away from the rest of the suit, she fashioned it into a thick bandage. It was sloppy and huge, but it would at least give her a chance to lock up the shop and head upstairs.

Once in the shower she let the hot water pound over her. Maybe it would wash away her bad luck.
No frigging chance of that.

The past month and a half had been hell. Difficult jobs, nasty owners. Nothing was working right. It seemed like everything she touched broke. Most of the mechanical work she had turned over to Harold and her part-timer, a kid named Jesse. It positively aggravated her because she loved working on cars. It was soothing to her. Normally. She was out of sorts tonight, though. It was why she had been underneath the Honda, looking for an oil leak. Trying to carry her share of the load. Holding her hand out of the water, she grumbled. It could probably take a couple of stitches. Stretching her fingers out made the cut across her palm gape open. It circled around the meat of the ball of her hand. Pretty nasty actually. And it was starting to hurt.

Her eye throbbed with every beat of her heart. For some reason it hurt even more when she looked in the bathroom mirror and saw how nasty it was.

Shit. Just what she wanted to do, go to the hospital on a rainy, crappy, discombobulated night. Wonderful.

Violet was stretched to the breaking point when she finally got home four hours later with ten brand-new stitches in the palm of her right hand, but no concussion and no fractures. She had a monster migraine, brought on by the stress, the pills they gave her at the hospital and the pounding rain. When she pulled into the shop parking lot it was a struggle to even park the car and turn off the ignition. Totally spent, she leaned her head against the steering wheel and passed out.

*

Rory gasped, fists
clenched on the steering wheel. Horns blared as he pulled to the side of the rain soaked road, almost hitting a mailbox. The sports car lurched and stalled as he let off the clutch in his agitation.

“What? What’s wrong?” Alessandro asked him drowsily, sitting up in the bucket seat. They were on their way to Kentucky. And Violet. Alessandro had fallen asleep a couple hours ago.

Rory shook his head, trying to pinpoint what it was. “I can’t feel her. She was in distress earlier and now I can’t feel her.” Panic began building in his chest, in the hollow spot where he normally felt her. What had happened? He breathed through the panic, letting his faint magic build inside his center. Trees swayed and wind blasted against the windshield as the wildness around him recognized him and fought to reach out and consume him. Projecting what he wanted, he tried to coerce the wild magic east toward the last spot he had felt her. Driving the car as they were would take hours to get there. He needed to know she was fine now.

Long, heart-stalling minutes later, he received a response to his quest. The magic had found her and had cocooned her in love and safety. Rory realized that she had lost consciousness. That was why he had lost track of her.

Alessandro was shaking him roughly by the shoulder. Rory opened his eyes.

“I’m fine. She’s fine.”

“
Dios mio
!” his Italian lover exclaimed. He spewed out a bunch more Italian words Rory faintly knew but didn’t understand. Catching his flailing hands, Rory pulled Alessandro to him, hugging him fiercely.

“I’m fine, ‘Sandro. I’m sorry I scared you.” Running kisses over his lover’s cheek, he pulled back. “I couldn’t feel her any more. For some reason, she’s passed out in her car. We have to get there.”

Alessandro didn’t argue and Rory loved him all the more for it. “Okay,
caro
, move—let me drive.”

Rory hopped out of the car in the pouring rain and hurried around to the passenger side. In no time Alessandro had them racing through the night, following the lightning striking to the east. There were some advantages to being involved with an ex-Formula One driver.

What would have taken them at least four more hours with Rory driving Alessandro trimmed down to two and a half. Even that time included a quick stop for gas in Indiana. For the first time Rory cursed his Fae ancestry, which made flying in the air away from the touch of the earth extremely uncomfortable. They could have been in Kentucky in an hour rather than the seven it took to drive from St. Louis. Alessandro had been right to urge him to come out when he did.

Rory was grateful Alessandro took over but he wondered about it too. Where was this meekness coming from? This wanting to be dominated and directed? Normally he was the strong one, the guiding one. It came naturally to his nature and his heritage.

Finding Violet had shaken everything about him. He couldn’t remember ever being this out of sorts.

When they pulled into the garage parking lot and found Violet still slumped in the driver’s seat of her truck he was even more shaken. Magic surrounded her, keeping her safe. With a few words of acknowledgement Rory eased through it.

They were drenched within seconds of exiting their own car. Alessandro produced a golf umbrella and shielded them as Rory slowly, gently pulled Violet out of her truck and into his arms. He clutched her to him in desperation, feeling her breath against his neck. Tears coursed down his face unchecked. He’d thought for sure she’d been stolen from him. When he couldn’t feel her heart, her natural magic coursing through him, it had devastated him. Even now the echo of the pain clashed through him jarringly.

Violet never roused as they turned to the shop. Alessandro had the foresight to grab her keys from the ignition and let them into the office, then relocked the door behind them. Darting up the stairs, he opened the doors and turned on lights in the apartment. Rory angled himself carefully through the doorjambs, careful not to bump her. His stomach clenched as he saw her for the first time in the light.

A mish-mash of purple colors covered her swollen eye. It wasn’t completely swollen shut, but almost. The purple continued under her eyes, betraying her tiredness and fatigue. Rory could tell she had lost weight since he had last seen her too and guilt ate at him. He should have made an effort to come back sooner. To take care of her. Her right hand was swathed in bandages as well, obscuring the injury. As he watched her fingers curled into his chest hair.

Sandro had turned down the bedclothes and stood ready with a towel and warm washcloth. While Rory held her Sandro blotted her face gently and cleaned some blood off her fingers, then blotted her dry. Moving to her other side he tugged on her boots, unlacing the dirty things and tossing them in the corner.

“Put her on the bed. We’ll take her clothes off and get her in her gown.”

Rory did as he was directed and let Sandro guide him in moving her body, exchanging her jeans, t-shirt and plain cotton bra for the silky, feminine nightgown that had been on the corner of the mattress. Violet never made a sound or opened her eyes the entire time they were tucking her in. They positioned her on her left, uninjured side.

Rory dropped to the side of the bed in relief and just watched her sleep. The knot in his gut began to ease.

Shaking his head, he looked up at Sandro. “I’ve never been that worried in my life.”

Resting a hand on his shoulder, his partner nodded in agreement. “I know. You scared me as well. I think we got here just in time though. She needed us.”