Empath (Book 1 of the Empath Trilogy) (37 page)

Once inside, James pulled me close enough to grab my shoulders and clamped down so tightly it hurt.  He was always so careful with me I knew he was more scared than he was letting on, his tenuous hold on himself slipping in the building tension.  The terrain the building provided was sparse.  They had gutted it entirely.  We were looking at concrete floors and glass windows with plastic sheeting hung to protect the glass, reducing the light inside to a hazy gray glow.  The cherry wood bar and the big mirror behind it were the only things inside. 

He looked at me, face tight with nerves and fear.  “We have no other choices.  You need to hide behind the bar.  Don’t come out; don’t move, whatever you hear.  Okay?”  Nodding, I started to walk away to take my position behind the bar and his vice like hold on my arm yanked me back.  I snapped into his chest with a force that would leave a bruise.  His lips found mine, his kiss was hard and desperate.  When I withdrew, I saw his fear and felt my stomach plummet.  I told myself he would be okay, he was virtually indestructible, and I hurried behind the bar. 

I hadn’t been hiding ten seconds when the side door creaked open and closed.  They were inside and, by their stealth, we could assume they were there to kill.  My fear for James was stifling and I was having a hard time breathing, trying by sheer force of will to keep my human heart and breath from giving away my position.  They would only serve to make James’ job harder than it was already.  I was left to do the only thing I could, be still and stay out of the way.  As I settled into a nook behind the bar, I saw a small crack in the wood.  It allowed me to see a narrow section of the dimly lit pub in front of me; at least I wouldn’t be completely blind to the action.

They were all so quiet I couldn’t hear any hints of movement at all.  Then something broke the light when it passed in front of one of the windows.  Within a moment, I saw a pair of legs directly in front of the bar.  I held my breath as the legs paused and turned away from me.  I recognized the long, thin legs as the pair belonging to the blond female.  They had started to walk away from my position when she dropped into a crouch and I could make out the outline of her shoulders, relieved to see her back was to me.  Then, I jumped and hurried to cover my mouth when I heard it a second later.  James and the male were facing off.  Their growls reached me from the front area of the pub, the area blocked from my sight by the blond.  I felt my heart begin to pound as my fear rose to new heights.

Ch. 46

Too late, I remembered the hearing of the female directly in front of me.  In my defense, I don’t think I could have controlled my heart rate anyway.  She whirled toward me and in one stride, had jumped up onto the bar.  Dropping down, she landed crouched in my face with her fangs bared and eyes dark with hatred. 

Her smile filled me with sickening dread.  It wasn’t a happy smile.  “I won’t make the mistake of assuming you died again.  This time I will kill you with my own hands.”

When she grabbed me, I felt by her touch that she did not have any sort of psychic shielding.  It had never occurred to me that like people, not all vampires have special abilities beyond what their nature and age granted them.  I couldn’t believe my luck.  I had an advantage in that she couldn’t block anything from me.  I’d thought I could read her before because she wasn’t trying to block me out, that she hadn’t been consciously shielding, but it was with a surge of elation that I realized she didn’t block because she couldn’t.  Facing my imminent death, I thought this would be an opportune time for me to test something I had been working on with Tara. 

After the attempted attack on campus, I had meant it when I told James the next time I would be stronger.  In our down time at the house, I had been working with Tara on the sly to project like Stephen did instead of just receiving signals.  It was like throwing the reverse switch on my channeling ability and, if things went well, flooding the other party to distract them. 

Looking into the blonde’s hate filled eyes, I decided there was no better time to test it out than right now.  First, I needed to find something in her head to use.  Maybe since she didn’t know how to block people out, she wouldn’t recognize my intrusion and would let me dig around in her head.  When I had felt her in the cafe I had gotten a strong sense of jealousy and anger toward her partner due to the fact that he had the ear of their leader and she did not.  Grabbing onto that combustible combination, I mixed it with a taste of my own anger toward them.  They had terrified me, caused my family to exhaust themselves protecting me and now were trying to kill me a second time in a week as well as my lover now fighting for both our lives only feet away.  My fury rose up inside me and I visualized my hands grabbing onto it and pushing it toward her. 

I saw it in her eyes when my emotional cocktail flooded into her and, as I had hoped, her eyes broke from mine.  Letting go of me, she rose and I watched her transfer her glare to the men in the corner.  My concentration was taxed as I continued to focus on her, to flood her with anger toward her partner.  I didn’t think I was strong enough to calm her down enough to avoid a confrontation; her hatred was too powerful.  I could only twist what she already had and hope that I could try to control it.

I knew that if I watched her go toward James, I would panic and lose focus.  Not wanting to lose my tentative control over what I was doing and have her attack him as well, I stayed where I was and concentrated with every fiber of my being on making her attack her partner. 

I carefully fed her rage with my own and funneled it down the connection I had built to her mind, tying rapidly into the feeling in my head that was her.  I flashed pictures only of her partner, supplementing hers with my own images of his dark eyes and hair and his small, powerful build.  His image was burned into both our minds and I made sure that his was the only face I saw in my head as I took over her mind, twisting it through our connection. 

The growls inside the pub changed.  There were three now instead of two and the female’s grew to a snarl.  Seconds later, I heard the crash as two bodies collided and a high-pitched scream before the female’s snarl abruptly ended.  I felt the connection I’d shared with her suddenly snap back, broken, and I was shocked as the power of the fury I’d been feeding her recoiled, slamming itself headlong into my mind. 

Too fast for me to have a chance at deflecting it, I felt it flood into me taking me over at once.  I wanted to kill the male.  My anger toward him was her anger.  It was a jealous anger and had nothing to do with his current desire to kill James or me.  Rising up, I threw myself bodily on top of the bar and rolled over to drop to my feet on the other side.  As I faced the men I saw James in a half crouch, arms out defensively toward the smaller male making ready to leap at the first opening.  The male had stepped over the headless body of the female and his own form was tensed to spring at James. 

My words were not my own as I shouted to get his attention.  Because I was channeling the last of her thoughts, I had the same lack of fear for my own safety.  At the sound of my cry both men turned toward me, their reactions polar opposites.  James’ was one of horror and the small male’s was pleasure.  When I saw him, the fury raged inside me and propelled me forward.  I needed to sink my fangs into him. 

Mid-stride, another connection screamed at me to stop.  Temporarily stunned, I stumbled to a halt and blinked in confusion.  The thick veil of the blonde’s killing rage lifted enough for me to feel the anguish coming at me through my mysterious bond with James.  My eyes sought his and found his jet black and wide as he stared from me to the male, gauging whether or not he could reach the male first before I did.  As I tried to shake down the fog of the dead blonde’s anger, the tiny piece of my human mind, crushing under the power of the invading psychic energy, told me that I had just put James in the exact position he had feared.  My heart twisted.

Movement from my periphery brought me back to the male on my right.  I saw him make his lunge and the rest was so fast, it didn’t make sense until after it was all over.  The male took a run and launched himself at me.  James leapt over the legs of the fallen blonde and with both hands out, hit the male from the side, deflecting him and sending him flying.  James’ momentum carried him to land next to the male, who had staggered to a stop just before going through the exterior window.  Fortunately for us, no one passing by could see us through the sheeting and the noise on the street covered any sounds of the scuffle within.  I could only hope we wouldn’t draw more vampire attention before we could get away from here.

The smaller male twisted, grabbing James’ arm and tried to pull him in toward his teeth.  James proved elusive and spun himself away.  In a move that turned my stomach, James chambered a leg and brought it down on the male’s knee, which gave with a snap and dropped him to his knees.  James lunged forward and with a quick movement of his hands, efficiently decapitated the male. 

The body had barely hit the ground when James turned to me.  I held my breath as he panted, breathing me in.  For what felt an interminable period he waged a different battle, this one internal.  Lowering his lips over his fangs, I saw his desire to have me as mate win over his desire for my blood. 

Placing his hand against my cheek, he turned my face up into his own.  Stepping back he scanned for any sign of injury.  Seeing nothing but shock in my frightened eyes staring back, he closed his eyes briefly and calmed himself so that when he reopened them, he was James again.  Almost. 

Though he had hidden his fangs and the flesh on his face regained some of its human softness, the darker color to his irises gave him away.  Leaving me no time to process all that I had seen, he put his arm around my shoulders, pulled me into his side protectively and commanded, “We have to leave, now.”  He steered me through the pub and out the metal door we had come through just minutes before, fearing for our lives.  Now, as we left, it dawned on me that we had lived and James had just torn the head off of a vampire right in front of me.  And here I was, strolling down the streets of Edinburgh with his arm around me, feeling nothing but comfort at his touch.  There had to be something wrong with me. 

We had walked nearly a mile before James felt safe stopping.  With his arm still cradling me, he halted my progress as well and I let him bring me around to face him.  The sunglasses were back in place leaving me blind.

“Claire,” his voice was warm on my skin cool from the brisk air, starting to bring me back to myself.  “We need to get you back to the hotel.  I think you need to lie down.”  I saw his brow furrowed with concern and I reached up to push back his hair off his cheek, needing to touch his skin and feel the cool hardness of his body.  It wasn’t a sexual need.  I had come to depend upon him so much to regulate myself, that it frightened me.  He was a part of me, our connection made us two parts of a whole, no longer easily distinguished from one another mentally. 

“Me?  What about you?  You need to feed soon or you’re going to lose it.”

He waved me off.  “I will have what I need in a few hours.”  Seeing the worry in my eyes, James pulled me close stroking my back soothingly.  He spoke quietly.  “I didn’t want you to see that.  Why didn’t you stay hidden?”  I watched the concern flash to anger as the details of the altercation came back to him.  “What the hell did you think you were doing throwing yourself into a fight between two vampires?  You could have gotten yourself killed.”

I pulled away, mad I couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark shades, my own anger flaring.  “She found me and was going to kill me.  Sorry I didn’t just sit there; I used her anger to make her go after her partner.”  A little embarrassed, I had to admit I had gone off half-cocked in there and almost ruined the whole thing.  “I wasn’t expecting the recoil.  But you have to admit it helped.”

His struggle was evident as he warred between his anger over my putting myself in danger and conceding that I had been able to effectively equalize the fight.  “You’ve been holding out on me.” 

Suddenly self-conscious, I couldn’t meet his eyes.  “Tara’s been helping me; she’s really good at projecting.  I didn’t want to be completely helpless the next time there was a fight, and I didn’t think learning to throw a punch would work with your crowd.” 

He snorted.  “Well, you’re right about that.”  His tone grew serious and there was something new in his voice.  “I’m proud of you, Claire.  It took a lot of self-control to do that and to keep it together when you saw,” James’ brow darkened, “when you saw what you did.  It had to be difficult.  I wish I could tell you that you won’t see that again, but that would be a lie.  We don’t know how all of this is going to come out or how much more fighting we will all see before this ends.”

I leaned into his chest.  I just wanted to be touching him right now and not thinking about Bradley or the Court or the bond I had with James.  Whether it was love with a vampire or magic that was causing it I didn’t know, but it didn’t seem to be hurting us so I wasn’t going to fear it for now.  I mumbled into his chest, “How much time do we have before we have to go to our meeting?  Can we still see the marina?  If you’re up to it.”