Embrace The Night (5 page)

Shimmering into nothing was pretty much how he’d describe it. One minute he was there, the next…he sort of evaporated after turning transparent and wavered away.

Sage and Theo had reached the bottom steps. She brushed past him, close enough that he felt her warmth. And smelled the fresh, pure scent that seemed to accompany her every move.

His concentration wavered, and Simon closed his eyes.
Focus.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t allowed down here. It was simply that he didn’t want to have to explain his purpose for being there. His lead would either pan out or it wouldn’t and why waste anyone else’s time or energy if it didn’t?

Now they were talking quietly, and Simon felt in control enough to look over as Sage took her regular seat at a bank of five computer keyboards and monitors. Theo stood behind her, and Simon watched as the other man slowly lifted his hand, pausing over her head, as if to settle it on top of her bright, warm hair.

Simon turned away and slipped silently, unnoticed, from the lab.

Thank God he had the power of invisibility—otherwise he might be forced to watch Dragon Boy try his hand at seduction.

That
would be excruciating.

In more ways than one.

Sage dragged her dry eyes open, delighted that the sun had begun to peep over the eastern horizon. Now she had no more reason to stay in bed and try to sleep.

As she surged up from beneath her covers, Sage glanced at the empty bed in the hotel room she’d shared with Jade, who now shared a room—and bed—with Simon’s friend Dr. Elliott Drake. She yawned, not because she’d just awakened, but because she hadn’t slept much. Weariness curled through her body, but her mind was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. She hated when that happened.

She slid out of bed and padded to the bathroom, afraid to even look at the rat’s nest of her hair.

The nightmares she might have expected after her attack had been tempered by other convoluted things. Yes, there’d been some dark moments twisting in her dreams—the suffocating feel of heavy hands and a dominating weight, but thankfully, those images had slid away to be replaced by other, more intriguing, ones.

Memories of Theo’s kiss on the rooftop…that soft, hesitant brush of lips. The “I’ll take it” response and his sober, hopeful eyes after she told him it was nice.

The way Simon Japp had appeared moments before, standing at the very edge of the roof,
much
too close to the edge—as if he flirted with danger. The red sun blazed in front of him, swathing him in fire. He stood tall and lean and controlled…yet lonely.

And then, a very different Simon, dangerous and hard, violence rolling from him as he held her attacker’s life in his hands. The drawn expression, the elegant hand, the spare, swift movements. The very thought of him made her belly tingle.

Theo’s gentle fingers brushing the hair from her face as she vomited in the bush, offering his shirt to wipe her mouth, then taking her to get some water so she could freshen up and rinse out her mouth. But then he tried to insist that she go back to her room to rest, as if she were a fragile child, and her insistence that she had work to do.

Didn’t he understand? She needed to do something to get her mind off the attack.

For some reason, when she and Theo had come into the computer lab, Sage had felt certain she’d find Simon there. She swore she sensed him, maybe smelled his scent…but that was absurd. He had no reason to be there, and if he’d been, he’d had no reason to hide. And she probably just smelled his shirt that she still wore.

And what made her so psychic all of a sudden? He wasn’t there, she and Theo were—and they’d ended up getting into a rare argument.

Sage felt a lump in her throat as she turned on the shower. Theo was her best friend. She’d known him and Lou for fifteen years. And if it was odd that she hung around with seventy-seven-year-old twins—even though only one of them looked it—well, so be it. She was, after all, a Corrigan. A Cor-Whore, as they were labeled. Or a Falker…said a certain way, it sounded like a nastier word. But she’d heard worse.

As the warm blast of water sprayed down on her, washing away her weariness and the ugly thoughts, Sage raised her face and let her hair become saturated, trying to remember how she and Theo had come to argue.

She’d still been upset from tossing her cookies, still a little shaky and weak-kneed yet more than a little defiant. She had, after all, kept her head during the attack, remembered what Theo had taught her, and inflicted her own damage. That satisfying crunch beneath her palm, just before Simon dragged the man away…that feeling would stay with her a long time.

When Sage informed Theo of this, she felt him stiffen from where he’d been standing behind her at the computer table.

“How can you be so nonchalant about it?” he said. His hand brushed the top of her head, lighter than the wings of a butterfly, then fell away. “You were
attacked
.”

“You call horking in the bushes nonchalant?” Sage retorted, turning to look up at him. “I’m far from nonchalant, Theo,” she said reasonably. “See this?” She raised her hand, which trembled noticeably. “I’ll probably have nightmares. And be nervous about going anywhere by myself for a while—”

“Damn straight you’re not going anywhere by yourself for a while,” he snapped, folding his arms over his chest. Scarlett writhed on his rippling arm, her catlike golden eye glaring at Sage from the back of Theo’s hand.

“—but I’m not going to hide away.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing for the last five years?” Theo returned. “Cloistering yourself down here, tapping away at the computer?”

“I’ve not been
hiding
!” Fury blasted through her—righteousness tinged with a bit of shame. Maybe she had. A little. “I’ve been working to help you and Lou and Jade.”

“Look,” Theo said, stepping back as if to gather his thoughts. He ran a hand through his shiny jet-black hair. “Sage. It’s not your fault you attract attention. I understand why you like to stay out of sight.”

“So you’re saying it’s my fault I was attacked?” She realized she was nearly shrieking, something that, despite her red hair, she rarely did. “Because I decided to come up from the dungeon?”

“Sage—”

“Because I walked somewhere by myself? Because of the color of my hair and eyes and skin?”

“No, it’s not your fault. But you need to be more
careful
,” he said. “Pay attention to what’s going on around you.” His voice was shaking.

She opened her mouth to shout something back at him, and realized her fingers were shaking. Tears stung her eyes and her nose was running.

“Sage,” he said, now hard and clipped as if fighting for control. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. I couldn’t handle it.”

She looked up at him, recognizing fury in his eyes. At her? He was furious with
her
?

“I know it’s hard for you to think of me as—as a friend, when I’m so much older than you,” he began.

Sage snorted an angry, crying, derisive laugh. Yeah, he was a
lot
older than she. He’d been around during the Change, and because of a fluke accident, his body had stopped aging for almost fifty years. Only in the last two had he begun to show signs of aging.

“I mean, you were, what…twelve when you came here from Falling Creek? And I was…” His voice trailed off as he spread his broad hands as if to say
and I was like this.

Like this.

He looked no more than thirty, and he’d changed hardly at all in the last fifteen years.

“You look exactly the same as you did when we first met,” Sage said. And probably exactly the same as he had on June 6, 2010, when everything had changed. Close-cropped ink-black hair with longish sideburns and a slightly prominent nose. He was a handsome man with dark, Asian eyes and a strong, square chin, and despite his hours hunched over a computer or digging around in an electrical box, he had long, lean muscles. Not to mention the fact that he had the ability to force a power surge from his body at will.

Suddenly, her heart was beating faster than it should have been. There was something in his eyes, something had changed. With heat swarming her cheeks, Sage remembered the kiss, the way he’d stepped closer to her suddenly, and then brushed his lips over hers.

Confused, she whirled to turn back to the computer, her heart pounding. Her palms felt damp and she began to type rapidly into the Yahoogle search box.
Remington Tr—

“Sage,” Theo said, his voice still tight. “Look. I want you to promise me that you won’t go anywhere by yourself, at least for a while.”

“I don’t want to promise that,” she said, knowing her voice was muffled. She stared at the white computer screen and saw that a list of options had dropped down below the search engine box; search strings she’d used earlier.

Remington Truth Cult of Atlantis

Remington Truth Parris Fielding

Remington Truth June 2010

Remington Truth Las Vegas condo

Las Vegas? Condo?

Now, in the steaming shower, Sage remembered the surprise when she registered that search string. She hadn’t used that phrase when searching. Huh.

This was her computer station; Theo and Lou used their own.

She’d clicked on it and pressed
GO
, feeling the weight of Theo’s stare on the back of her head.

“At least I remembered the things you taught me,” she said stiffly. “Simon said I broke the guy’s nose.”

“What’s up with Simon?” Theo asked. Very casually.

She turned toward him without looking at the results on the screen. “What do you mean?”

“Is he hitting on you? Do I need to check him out, like I did for Owen?” Theo said, one side of his mouth lifting in a sort of grimacy-smile.

“
No,
he’s not hitting on me,” Sage said. “He’s hardly said two words to me. He’s…quiet.” Well, that wasn’t quite true. He’d said more than a few sentences when he talked about his memories of Las Vegas.

“Well, I wondered if I was interrupting something when I found you two on the roof today.” Theo gave a little laugh.

“Nope. He was probably glad you came, because he definitely wanted an excuse to leave.”

Yeah, Simon had definitely wanted to hightail it out of there. And he couldn’t wait to take off tonight after he’d beat up her assailant. And that was just as well with Sage. She didn’t exactly want to be seen puking her guts out. By him, anyway.

“Okay.” Theo looked at her oddly for a moment, then, shoulders bunching, he turned away.

She spun slowly on her chair, back to the keyboard, feeling as if he’d meant to say something else, something more. And for some reason, the back of her neck prickled…like she wasn’t sure if she
wanted
to hear what he was going to say.

“Sage.” He said her name suddenly, with an odd note. A sort of resolve, maybe.

The next thing she knew, he’d spun her chair back around to face him, and he lunged forward and down, hands planting on the arms of her chair.

And he kissed her.

Not at all like he’d done earlier today.

He wasn’t tentative, as he fit his lips to hers, gently tucking his mouth around her top lip, then shifting as she softened against him. Sage kissed him back, slowly, examining and tasting, aware of the tenderness from the cut on her mouth. She enjoyed the way they fit together and remembered how long it had been since she’d experienced this pleasure. Years.

Then, before his hands moved, or their mouths opened, or even before her eyes closed, she heard the soft
ding
that announced an arrival.

Sage and Theo pulled away at the same moment, and he looked down at her, unmoving despite the sound of footsteps on the stairs. “Just tell me,” he said quietly, a bit unsteadily, “if that was like kissing an old man.”

Her eyes widened and her cheeks warmed. “No,” she replied. “It was nice.” She smiled, realizing that things really were changing…and she hoped it would be all right, whatever happened. Was he having some sort of midlife crisis? “I don’t think of you as an old man, Theo. Not at all.”

And just as he smiled back, his eyes settling on her in a way they never had before, the door opened and Lou appeared, saying something random about meatloaf.

Now, as Sage stepped out of the shower, tucking a towel around her hair and another around her body, she touched her lips, remembering how full and lush they’d felt afterward. Or maybe that was just because her mouth was already swollen from being hit. She glanced toward the steamy mirror, able to see only the muted image of herself, so she swiped the fog away, leaning toward the streaky glass.

Yikes!

She stared at her face, seeing for the first time the puffiness around her eye and the darkening bruise on her cheek. Horrified, she angled closer to the mirror and observed all of the damage. A little cut on her lower lip, just below the freckle that dotted her upper one—the freckle she hated. She’d tried more than once to cover it with Flo’s experimental lip color or gloss. Ugh.

At least the cut below detracted from that annoying blob on her lip.

Funny. She hadn’t felt more than a twinge when Theo kissed her last night.

Theo kissed her for a second time. And for some reason, she wasn’t anticipating a third time. He was nice and all, he didn’t turn her off or anything, but, well, even when she’d kissed Owen, she remembered there being more of a spark. With Theo it was just…merely nice.

Would that change? Could one get used to kissing someone?

Sage allowed the towel to fall from her hair, and the mass of curls—now smelling of lavender and rose from Flo’s shampoo and conditioner—tumbled over her pale shoulders. Even though it was wet, her hair still shone with red and orange glints, though not nearly as brightly as when it was dry.

Most of the time, she didn’t mind having the Corrigan coloring—the hair, the distinctive blue eyes, the fair, fair skin that had too many freckles. But that was because she kept to herself, out of the way, out of sight for the most part. She could almost forget what it meant.

Sage touched her lips again with light fingertips and looked at herself.