Bound Guardian Angel (50 page)

“Just . . .” Micah waggled
his fingers as if he were shooing away a leper. “Just stand over
there and get ready.” He turned away, mumbling disgustedly under
this breath.

“Get ready for what?” The harder she tried
not to stare at Trace’s erection, the more she couldn’t look
away.

She wanted to wrap her palm around it. Feel
its warmth. It’s hardness. How smooth it was. How virile. How
powerful.

She had no reason to think his cock would be
any different than the rest of him. He
was
power. Potent in
every way. From the forces he wielded with his hand and his mind,
to his magnanimous stature, Trace oozed intensity that beckoned
every cell in her body to transform into mush.

He had commanded her desire from the first
time she saw him in Bain’s court. Even before that, if she was
being honest with herself. Because when she saw him inside the
minds of Bain’s guards, coming down the stairs of Io’s basement,
matchstick loose between his lips, hand held in front of him like
he was a great and almighty god come to bestow favor and punishment
on his subjects, she’d been taken by him. His look. His
devil-may-care attitude. Everything about Trace had beckoned every
part of her.

Which was why she’d been adamant about
slamming the door on him right from the start, especially after she
realized she could feel him. She didn’t need a male in her life,
stirring up trouble, stealing her heart so that she could be hurt
again when he flung it back at her like discarded scraps after he
was finished with her.

She’d gone down that road once before and
found nothing but pain.

Damn her. Damn
him
. She loved him.
She couldn’t deny it. But she didn’t want to love him. She didn’t
want to feel such emotion again. Love made females weak. It made
them stupid. Made them behave like flighty butterflies tittering
higher and higher with nowhere to go but down.

As much as her heart pulled her to take a
chance, she refused to fall into that trap again, even if she had
to force herself not to.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t savor the
delicious visual of his body. Even a blind woman could appreciate
that
generous rod of steel.

“Take a picture.”

At the sound of Micah’s voice, she tore her
gaze from Trace’s spank bait and met his gaze.

“What?” she said.

“Are you finished eye-fucking my friend, or
should I wait? Because you smell like you’re only a few mental
thrusts away from creaming yourself.”

“MICAH!” Sam glared at him from the other
side of the table.

“Fuck you, Micah.” Cordray scowled and
looked away.

Trace laughed. A dark, malevolent, echoing
laugh that sounded more like the devil corrupting God’s angels than
a vampire getting a good chuckle at her expense.

Micah’s head snapped around. “What’s going
on?” His gaze shot back and forth between her and Trace. “What’s
happening?”

Cordray scanned his thoughts. “He hears us,
but he’s not fully aware it’s us. He’s trapped inside his own
personal hell in there.” She frowned at the repeating loop of his
thoughts. “And he’s getting worse.” She eyed the wands and small
bowl of alcohol on the table. “Whatever you’re going to do, you’d
better do it soon, or I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”

Micah grabbed the wet towel out of the bowl,
briskly rung it out, and tossed it at her. “Here. Take this.”

Wet towel slapped her in the face as she
haphazardly caught it. “What do I do with it?”

“Stand over here. Sam, you’ll need to move,
baby.” Micah worked quickly, pointing with one hand and gathering
his equipment with the other. “Fuck, but I hope this works or we’re
all going to have to say quick good-byes to one another if it
doesn’t.”

Sam let go of Trace’s hand and shimmied to
the side.

Cordray took up station across the table
from Micah. “Now what?”

Micah lit another wand that had been soaking
in alcohol. “Get ready.”

“For what?”

“I’m going to try something, and I’ll need
you to be ready to cover him with that towel when I say so.”

She nodded, but she wasn’t sure she liked
where Micah seemed to be going.

Trace pulled against his chains and strained
his head back, clenching his teeth as he let out an angry,
strangled cry.

Micah poised the flaming cotton ball over
Trace’s face. “Let me in, Trace,” he said loudly. Trace stopped
squirming as his eyes flashed open and followed the dot of
blue-orange fire Micah waved in front of him like a hypnotist’s
watch. “Do you hear me? Open up your mind and allow me inside.”

“He hears you,” Cordray said softly. “But
he’s resisting.”

Micah smoothed his free hand over Trace’s
sweat-streaked scalp. “No more resistance. I’m done playing, Trace.
I told you that you were going to let me in.” Micah spoke to him
with deadly assertiveness. “And until you open your mind to me,
this is how it’s going to happen.”

Trace rolled his head from side to side,
eyes popping out of his sockets, clearly not down with this plan,
even if he was only partially aware of his surroundings.

Micah tsked. “It’s too late for that, slave.
You had your chance. Now shit gets real.”

Cordray held her breath as Micah drew a line
of alcohol from his groin to his sternum.

Trace jerked, tugging on the chains as an
alarmed grunt ripped from his throat.

Micah touched the flame to the bottom of the
alcohol trail.

A terrified shriek exploded from Trace’s
throat as the fire shot up to his chest.

Tensing, Cordray prepared to throw the towel
over Trace’s stomach, but Micah chased the flame with his gloved
hand, dousing it.

“Do it, Trace! Do it now! Open up to me so I
can end this!” Micah slammed his gloved hand onto the table beside
Trace’s head, making the chains rattle.

Cordray gasped as a gust blew her hair away
from her face. She exchanged glances with Micah.

“He’s close,” she said.

Micah turned urgent eyes toward her. “Close
to breaking?”

She nodded then glanced at the fire. “Do it
again.”

The torrent of thoughts racing through
Trace’s head changed. He was thinking about his mother again, but
this time, the thoughts didn’t stop and loop back when he got to
the point where she was being dragged toward the pyre. Now she was
on the pyre. Screaming as fire overwhelmed her, licked her skin,
vaporized her hair.

Cordray nearly dropped to her knees as
Trace’s agony and terror consumed her.

“Oh God . . . his mother.”
Her voice whispered from between her lips on an agonizing exhale.
“They’re burning her. Oh God, they’re burning her! And the
house . . . his father . . . his
brother. They’re inside. They’re trapped.” She began weeping and
flung her forearm over her face, locked not just into Trace’s
memories, but his emotions, as well. “Make it stop! Please stop! I
don’t want to see this!”

* * *

Micah sucked in his breath. He needed inside Trace’s
thoughts before he destroyed not only himself but Cordray.

He grabbed Trace’s chin and yanked his head
around, latching onto Trace’s eyes with his own. “Let me in, Trace.
Now. I need inside.”

Trace was panting, eyebrows scrunched, a
film of perspiration beading on his face. His lips and chin
trembled as tight exhales burst from his mouth. He shook his head,
yellow eyes pleading.

“Now, Trace. Let me in there. I can help you
if you just let me in.”

A shiver raced through Trace’s body.

“They’re coming after him,” Cordray said.
She still had her face covered, so her voice came out muffled.
“They want to burn him, too. They’re going to set him on fire. Oh,
God, no. No! Run, Trace! Run!” She blew out a relieved breath.
“He’s running . . . he’s
running . . . back into the woods. Blindly running.
I can’t see where we’re going. They’re running after him. It’s all
his fault. He did this. He killed his mother. It’s all his
fault . . . he thinks it’s his fault.”

Damn it, he needed to bring Trace back
before he lost him.

“Cordray!” He smacked the table.

She snapped out of her daze and hurtled her
pained, tear-filled gaze toward his.

“Help me!”

With a sharp nod, she took a tremulous step
closer to the table.

“Hold up the towel. Get ready.”

He was going to try something. Something
dangerous. Something that could go very, very wrong. But his
intuition told him it was the only thing that would provide the
right impetus to unlock that goddamn stronghold Trace had on his
mind.

Cordray held the towel in front of her.

“Are you ready?” he said.

She nodded shakily. Obviously, whatever
she’d seen inside Trace’s head had fucked her up, too.

“Can you do this, Cordray?”

She stared back at him, eyes wide, mouth
open. He’d never seen her so shaken. If not for the seriousness of
the situation, he would have laughed.

“I need to hear it! Tell me! Can you do
this?”

She nodded, fighting back her emotions.
“Y-yes. Yes, I can do this.”

It felt like he was defusing a bomb. One
that only had a few seconds left on the timer. If he failed,
everything would explode and he’d lose his best friend, his home,
Cordray, Sam, himself. His entire existence seemed to hinge on this
one critical moment.

And time was running out.

He grabbed the small, folded towel he’d
soaked in alcohol and rubbed it as carefully as possible over
Trace’s chest and stomach.

“Micah . . .
no . . . what are you doing?” Sam gasped and covered
her mouth.

“Trust me, baby.” He took a deep breath and
raised the flaming baton over Trace’s body.

Trace growled. He sounded more like an
animal than a vampire. He was one step away from going mutant. If
this didn’t work, Trace was a goner.

And it would be his responsibility to kill
him.

He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t
lose his best friend that way.

He nodded toward Cordray, who nodded back.
He could feel her inside his head, so she knew his plan, as well as
her part in it.

“Micah . . .” Trace’s deep
voice curdled his blood. His eyes blazed. His fangs dripped with
venom as he snarled.

Fuck. Maybe it was already too late.

Now!

He pulled the folded towel away and tapped
the flaming baton to the alcohol. Fire erupted over Trace’s
torso.

A monstrous screech split the air as Trace
strained against the chains. Wind whipped through the dungeon. The
sound of cracking and snapping wood took Micah’s gaze to the table,
but thankfully it held.

Then lightning bolts of Trace’s thoughts
fired inside Micah’s mind, intensifying rapidly.

“Not yet!” he shouted at Cordray, who held
the wet towel at the ready.

As the wind tossed the pillows from the bed
and lifted his floggers from their hooks, more memories, detonating
at supersonic speed, launched into Micah’s mind, flying, streaming,
discharging like a thousand nuclear bombs in less than a
second.

Jesus! This was what Trace had been holding
inside him?

“Micah!” Cordray’s terrified eyes collided
with his as she lifted the towel. “Now?” Her long hair whipped
around her face.

“Not yet . . . hold
on . . .”

Trace shrieked again—the sound an agonizing
wail of torment—as a lifetime of pain rocketed from Trace’s mind
into Micah’s.

“Now!” The fire had burned through the vapor
barrier and was hitting Trace’s skin.

Cordray threw the towel over Trace’s body
just as the swirling wind blasted into Micah with enough force to
pick him up and hurtle him against the far wall. He bounced off,
tossed like a ragdoll onto the floor.

“Micah!” Sam raced toward him, dropping to
her knees beside him.

He shook out the cobwebs and grinned weakly
up at her.

“Are you okay?” She brushed his hair off his
face, desperate concern pouring from her gaze.

“Better than okay.” His voice came out as a
fractured whisper.

Her slanted brows bunched over her nose.

“I’m in,” he said. Trace’s mind was open. He
was inside Trace’s head. “I’m in, baby.”

Chapter 27

Trace lay slack, his body warm, loose, and flying,
even as the ghost of his childhood memories evaporated into
ether.

He had finally opened up to Micah, and like
a sinner confessing his crimes, a weight lifted off his soul. Guilt
still resided in his heart, but the self-oppression no longer
dragged him to the bottom of the ocean like a cinder block chained
to his ankle, and the ache behind his sternum was gone.

Breathing more easily than he had in a long
time, he became aware that something was lying on top of him. No,
some
one
. A body draped crossways over his torso.

He peeled his eyelids open, lifted his head,
and sucked in a pleasantly surprised inhale.

Cordray was slung over him like a blanket.
Her long, partially braided hair lay like silken, ebony spider webs
on his skin. Her full breasts pressed against his stomach.

She was the reason he was so calm. The
reason his chest no longer ached. Not even a shadow of the pain
he’d experienced for hours remained.

She’d taken his pain away.

Just by touching him.

His beast had completely
receded . . . because of her.

He laid his head back on the wood between
his arms, which were still stretched over his head. Quiet
tranquility wrapped around him. He was a lily pad floating on a
pond, the sun warming him from above, the water cooling him from
below.

Totally Zen.

Micah was nearby. Trace could feel him. But
wherever he was, it didn’t feel like he had the energy to do much
more than lay there. Kind of like him. Kind of like Cordray.