Hold Me If You Can (8 page)

“Tell me what hurts.” Nigel caught her, his powerful arms supporting her as the pain shot through her again. “Has this happened before?”

“A couple times,” she gasped. “But not like this.” She’d dismissed it before as stress and assorted emotional baggage, but not this time. This time was different. The pain was insidious and stabbing, twisting through her body. Agony bounced around inside her like a pinball gone haywire. To every corner of her body, her fingers, her toes, her belly, her chest. “Oh, God.” She went down on her knees, but Nigel pulled her to his chest, easing her down gently.

Then he swore, and his protective embrace loosened. “Mother of hell.” Raw shock stunned his voice. “You smell like Mari.”

She didn’t have time to respond before the blackness hit her mind and the world disappeared.

***

Having a woman swoon in his arms had never been on Nigel’s top ten list of things he wanted to accomplish in a lifetime. Yeah, true, an unconscious female was somewhat limited in her ability to hurt him, but the fact she was limp and vulnerable put the responsibility on him to go into nurturing mode. With a woman.

That was against everything he’d ever learned.

You respected women.

You acknowledged that one or two might be a decent human being.

You always remembered their ability with a knife, black magic, and poison darts.

And you never, ever saw them as a fragile bundle of femininity that needed support, because the minute a man dropped his shields to give her some TLC, the chick would turn that vulnerability on him in a heartbeat.

He’d go from cradling her in his arms to having his balls in a vise faster than it took to lose a boner at the sight of Angelica or her girls. He knew, because it had happened to him. The other warriors had learned faster not to nurture a woman, but it hadn’t been until number sixty-one that Nigel had finally gotten smart enough to realize a man never,
ever
saw a woman as vulnerable and treated her that way.

But as Natalie sagged in his arms, all he wanted to do was cradle her to his chest. To bring her peace. To keep her safe. To protect her as he’d never protected anyone in his life. In that moment when Ella had been bringing them together, connected their energy, he’d felt something come to life inside him, a warmth that had eased the hardness inside him.

It had been dangerous to allow himself to burn for Natalie like that, but he’d realized that it was necessary. Natalie needed to feel a safety net around her, and she needed his help to tap into the power within her. It had been a calculated risk to reach out to her like that, and it had made him apprehensive… until he’d felt her spirit reach for his.

And then he’d simply known it was right. That moment, that choice, it had been beauty unlike anything he’d ever drawn in his life. The he caught a whiff of a scent he knew all too well.

Mari. The woman who had tumbled so fragilely into his arms smelled like Mari. He lifted her hand and inspected her fingers. Black magic residue pulsing even more strongly than before. He swore as blades instinctively came to life beneath his skin. The shit racing around inside Natalie was everything he’d spent the last hundred and fifty years fighting against so he would live one more day.

Natalie Fleming was black magic, and she was Mari’s black magic. His skin was tingling everywhere they touched, and his palms were smoking. A knife sprang up in his hand before he’d had time to think.

“What are you doing?” Ella grabbed at his arm, trying to wrest the knife out of his grip. “Something’s wrong with Natalie! Can’t you see? She’s not attacking you, for God’s sake! Look at her!”

Nigel instinctively glanced down, and her eyes fluttered open. The emerald green depths weren’t Mari’s. They were Natalie’s. How many times had he drawn those eyes, the turmoil within? From across the room he’d watched her, compelled by those eyes—

“No.” He knew what women were like, and this woman was bleeding Mari from every pore of her body. His instincts ordered him not to be taken in again.
He
would
not.

But as he held Natalie in his arms, as he felt her body convulsing in agony, heard the moan of dismay deep in her throat, as his warrior side ordered him to drop her, stand back, and pull out his weapons, he couldn’t stop thinking of her eyes. Of the woman who had such ghosts in her soul.

He knew what ghosts were like.

“For God’s sake, drop the knife,” Ella ordered. “Give her to me. I can help her—”

“Don’t touch her.” He suddenly realized his blade was inching too close to the tender skin of Natalie’s throat. Son of a bitch! He was better than that!

Swearing, he hurled the knife against the wall. It hit with a loud thump and sank deeply into the wall. He hooked his left arm around Natalie to anchor her against his chest, then rubbed his palms together as she convulsed again. The moment a faint glow began to emanate from his palms, he set his hand on her chest, over her heart, to heal her from whatever was eating away at her.

He closed his eyes and opened his soul to hers, to the pain within her. The taint within her hit him hard, and he swore as the darkness swirled over him. The blackness. It was raw black magic, and it was Mari’s, and… mother of hell.
Angelica.

Now both women’s auras were swirling inside Natalie, thick and black. He could taste the bitterness, like black licorice mixed with sulfur, burning his mouth, his nose, his cells. It was acrid and harsh, bleeding through him. It wasn’t just magic, it was the darkest part of black magic. Images flashed in his mind. Of the bronze metal beasts that had attacked him such a short time ago.

Demons.

There was demon magic inside Natalie.

Charles Morgan had no time for deals. Now that he was back, he was going to be a little busy saving every living creature from themselves. No one would ever suffer the fate of his darling Prunella. Not ever.

Mari eyed him. “Don’t you want to hear what the deal is?”

He gave a lofty snort that felt delicious. It was wonderful to be sane enough to remember how arrogant he was supposed to be. “I am far too powerful to resort to deals.”

“Are you so powerful?” Mari sighed and waggled her weapon with a decided lack of enthusiasm. “Because it seems to me that if you were that magnificent, you wouldn’t have been stuck as Angelica’s smut monster for the last three hundred years.”

“She caught me off guard.” And that would never happen again. It was time to go on the offensive and tap into his best weapon: dream manifestation. Charles began to search Mari’s mind for a dream he could use against her long enough to shift the balance of power between them.

Every creature was a constant swirl of dreams. Some desires were little, like wanting to reach the itch in the middle of her back. Some were big, like pining for some bastard who would never love her. Most were fleeting, not focused, not pure of heart, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about them.

But sometimes, there was a dream that the wisher was in complete alignment with, even for a split second, and if Charles caught that moment, he could make it come true.

In Mari’s dream field, he saw the name Christian again and again and felt the desperate love surrounding it. Her unrequited love for Christian was destroying her.

By all saints, she was just like Prunella! Pining for a man she didn’t believe she was worthy of. And just like Prunella, there was nothing he could do to grant dreams that were so bogged down with denials of self-worth, with doubt, with that agony of undeservedness. The poor child. She was blocking so many dreams—

One flared into focus—bright, bright focus.

I
am
so
hungry.
And then she thought of a pizza with pure, unfettered, beautiful longing.

Bingo! He snapped his fingers and a spinach salad appeared out of nowhere. It hovered in front of her for a moment, and she yelped in surprise. Shit. Where was the pizza? It
had
been a pizza, right?

Then he noticed the shocked look on her face. Yes, yes, he was impressive, wasn’t he? Pizza or greenies, it was still quite a move, eh?

The salad leapt off the plate and flung itself toward her mouth. Because, you know, she was hungry, right? And she wanted to eat it, right? Dreams come true, baby.

“Hey!” She ducked and batted away flying spinach leaves as he lunged for her pink baton of hell.

He yanked it out of her hand just as the food went flying. “Victory to the king!” He held it above his head and grinned as she wiped blue cheese splatterings off her face. “You will bow to me. I am a god.”

And hot damn. He was. Three hundred years without granting a dream and he’d gotten it almost right on his first try. He’d tried for food and actually gotten food! He was magnificent. It really was time to save the world.

Mari peeled a piece of spinach off her right eyebrow. Surprisingly, she looked disappointed. “I was thinking of pizza, not salad. I thought you were better than that.”

“I’m rusty.” Then he realized the implications of what she’d said. “You wished for a pizza on purpose?”

“Of course. I wanted to test you.” She cocked her head, studying him thoughtfully. “So, that’s really all it takes for you to do your work? One thought of pizza and you turned into Chef Gourmet?”

“Oh, yes. I need only a split second of pure longing, and I can tap into it.” He spun the baton. “Now open the door, salad girl, and release me.”

Mari sat down on the couch and patted the seat beside her. “Come talk, Charlie.”

He brandished the weapon he’d stolen from her. “I’ll shoot you.”

She froze. “Oh, no, don’t shoot that gun. It’ll turn on you.”

“Hah! Why would I believe that?” He sensed that Mari wasn’t half-bad, but he could not fulfill his mission while he was locked in her dungeon. “I appreciate you relieving me of my smut, but I have important things to accomplish. Let me out.”

“I can’t.” She folded her arms, and her chin jutted out. “I need your help to fix everything that I’ve done to the men here. You aren’t leaving until we’re finished.”

“The world needs me!” He picked up the gun. “Open the door or I will force it.”

Mari sighed and leaned back. “Fine, be that way.”

“Fine.” He aimed the gun at her heart and pulled the trigger.

The pink stars of pain shot out, whipped around, and hit him right in the nuts.

“Mother of pearl!” Charles dropped to the ground, grabbing for his manly regions again. “That wasn’t supposed to happen!”

“My spells go to the nearest XY chromosome in the room,” Mari said as she picked up the baton. “None of my weapons can be used on me. Now, are you ready to talk?”

His nuts had already swollen to the size of grapefruits, and they were red and inflamed. Elephantiasis on the way. “A man’s jewels of ecstasy are personal zones of safety, woman! Attacking violates every rule of combat in the universe!”

“You did it to yourself! I tried to stop you!” Mari shoved the baton into her pocket. “For heaven’s sake, this kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen in the Den anymore! Men are supposed to be safe here! Don’t you understand what I’m trying to do? Don’t make me do this kind of thing!”

Dear Lord. His nuts were like watermelons with poison ivy. “You are a crazy bitch.”

Mari’s face crumpled with dismay. “I am not crazy, and I am definitely not a bitch. I’m trying to fix things.”

“You develop weapons to turn a man’s pride and joy into leprosy. Crazy and bitch, all in one.”

“But it’s for good reasons. It’s not to hurt you.” Mari sighed. “As much as I think Angelica had her values all screwed up, sometimes I understand her frustration. I am not doing this because I like to hurt you. We all must sacrifice for the greater good.”

“Ah… the greater good.” Yes, yes, that was what he lived for. He liked the greater good. Charles unbent himself enough to get his elbows on the couch. “Shangri-La, you mean?”

“No.” She frowned. “Loving, lasting partnerships.”

Oh,
that.
He rolled his eyes in disgust. “Not love again.” He struggled to his feet, keeping his thighs well spread so his overly inflated regions of pleasure had room to throb. “Listen, hotlips, let me tell you something. Dreams destroy.” He eased down to the couch next to her with a groan he couldn’t stifle. “People get so obsessed with what they aren’t getting that they lose the ability to appreciate what they do have. The unrequited yearnings eventually ruin them. And unrequited love is the worst culprit of all.” Darkness settled in his chest as he thought of his dear, sweet daughter. Destroyed by a love so deep.

“Love can be painful, I admit.” Mari glanced down at his manly bits, and she bit her lip. She walked over to his fridge, pulled out an ice pack, and handed it to him. “Here.”

He set the cooling panacea on his groin. “Ah, yes, that’s much better.”

“I try to mitigate the effects of my spells,” she said. “I keep first aid in all my men’s rooms.”

Charles closed his eyes. “You’re still a bitch.”

“I am not!” Mari’s voice grew tense, and then she took a breath to calm herself. “Look, Charles, I agree that dreams can be harmful.”

He looked up, startled. “You do? No one ever agrees with me. The dream genies put me on administrative leave when I started talking like that.” He moved closer and winced as his swollen balls got squished under his thigh. “Do you want to hear my plan? It’s brilliant.” He glanced around the room for any eavesdroppers. “I can grant dreams, right?” He lowered his voice. “But I can also destroy them.”

Mari’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“Oh, yes. I can suck them right out of someone.” He rubbed the ice gently over his testicles. “I still remember the first time I did it. A young man named Ricky was deeply in love with a woman who had scorned him.” Ricky, who had been Charles’s best friend since childhood. “He was depressed, he’d lost his job, he’d stopped taking showers, and he’d adopted six feral cats. He was dying, and all because of his dream.”

Ricky’s dreams had been so powerful that when Charles had been riding his horse past the cabin, he’d literally been forced to rein in and rush into the decrepit abode. How he’d raced up the stairs, his heart thumping when he’d rounded the corner and seen his friend. “It was just like Prunella,” he said. “Seeing Ricky dying, because he dreamed of a woman who didn’t love him back.” He could still feel the pain as he’d fallen to his knees and grabbed his friend’s hand. “He begged for me to grant his dream, but I couldn’t give it to him.”

“Why not?” Mari looked so disappointed. “I thought you were good.”

“Hey! I tried!” he snapped. God, had he tried. Impotence was the worst hell indeed. “But he didn’t believe in his dream, and unless you believe, I can’t do it.” Something inside him had simply snapped, and he’d done the unthinkable. He hadn’t tried to do it. He’d just freaked out and it had happened. “I took his dreams and tossed them aside.”

“Really?” Mari leaned forward, her face riveted. “How’d you do it?”

Charles shrugged modestly. “Just my natural talent, I guess. It’s technically impossible for a dream genie to steal dreams, but I have always been an overachiever, so it really was no surprise that I could do the impossible.” It turned out that it was a lot easier to steal dreams than to grant them, because it didn’t depend on the wisher having his thoughts in perfect alignment.

Mari waved her hand impatiently. “So, what happened to Ricky?”

Charles thought back to that moment, and peace settled over his body. “Ricky looked at me and said, in this voice of pure awe, ‘It’s gone. The pain is gone.’” Charles grinned. “And then he went on to invent a new method for coloring women’s hair, made millions, and died a happy man with many women servicing him repeatedly.”

Mari smiled. “That’s beautiful.”

“It is.” He sighed. “It was too late for Prunella, but if I can save others from her fate, then her death was not in vain.”

She nodded. “I understand that. The awful things that happen sometimes are made less terrible if we use them to do good things.” She hugged herself. “That’s what I keep telling myself when I get upset about the things I did under Angelica’s orders.”

He studied Mari. “If you take away people’s dreams, then you take away the frustration and agony of wanting something they can’t have. And then they can find the inner peace and serenity that will allow them to be who they truly are.”

Mari smiled. “So, you plan to turn the world into Shangri-La by stripping all living beings of their dreams?”

“Yes, yes.” Now that he was free from smutville, he could actually do it. He stood up. “Let’s do it, woman. Let’s—”

She didn’t move. “But you’re not that good at the dream thing.”

Charles narrowed his eyes. “I am a god.”

“Who creates spinach salad instead of pizza.”

“It still worked.”

“Sort of.” Mari rose to her feet and stretched. “What if you try to steal dreams, and you screw it up? Don’t you need to get it right the first time? Because once you start monkeying around, then the dream police will get into your head and come to arrest you. One-shot deal, right?”

Ah, it was always unfortunate when someone else had a valid point. “This is possible. They do not have my vision. They lost track of me when I went into demon dog assault mode, but I suspect they will be able to find me now that I’m playing in their sandbox again.”

“They can’t get you in here.” Mari gestured at the walls that were glistening with black magic. “You can practice stealing dreams in here.”

Charles looked around at his prison. At the light blue walls, at the dog bed in the corner, at the bowl of kibble on the floor. “I don’t want to be in here. It stifles my creativity.”

“Well, I have news for you, Charlie.” Mari folded her arms over her chest. “You’re in here until I let you out.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What do you want?”

“I want you to cleanse the dreams of the men I bring to you,” she said, her voice growing in excitement. “Every dream they have except romantic love. They all deserve to be loved, but we damaged them so badly that they can’t love. Love will bring them peace.”

“Absolutely not.” Charles folded his arms over his chest. “Romantic love is most dangerous. I cannot stand by and watch more people suffer when they could be saved.”

“These warriors are already broken inside.” Mari leaned forward, her voice urgent. “To heal, they need to be able to release their dreams of revenge, of destruction, of harm, and they need to open their hearts to love. Surely you can admit that fulfilled love is beautiful?”

Charles sighed, remembering that moment when he’d saved Ricky. The feeling of his heart swelling, when he’d realized he could save the world. That was when he’d first fallen in love with himself. “Yes, yes, love can be wonderful—” He stopped when he saw the flash of triumph on Mari’s face. “Would one of these needy warriors be Christian, by any chance?”

Pain flickered across her face. “Eventually. I owe it to him. He suffered greatly because of me.” Mari’s voice was quiet. “He deserves love. It doesn’t have to be me. I just want him to have peace.” She held up a black pole he hadn’t noticed before. Where had she been hiding it? “This is my smut rod. I’ve used it on you three times to pull smut off you. I’ll trade cleansing for your help. Each load I take off you, you’ll get more of your talents and powers back. No more salads instead of pizza.”

Charles narrowed his eyes. He’d already been snookered by Angelica once. “Why would you make me more powerful?”

“Because you will need to be at your strongest to help Christian. His dreams are extremely bitter and entrenched.” She hunched her shoulders, looking fragile and vulnerable. “I really betrayed him,” she said. “He’s pretty consumed by hate and revenge now.”

Charles rubbed his whiskers, contemplating. Mari had dreams, big dreams, and he admired that. She reminded him of Prunella, with her courage and her strength, and the way she was suffering from unrequited love. He could help this woman the way he hadn’t been able to help his own daughter.