Ignited (21 page)

I cleared my throat and tried to stem the urge to hide under the table.

“He’s right, Remy,” Asher said, distracting me. “What you’re doing with Erin is great, but it doesn’t test your skills. You need to train against a Protector.”

I glanced around. “What do you say, Lottie? Here’s your chance to take me down. Want to brawl?”

Her narrow shoulders shuddered in distaste. “Um, no. My luck, I’d end up bonded to you and be stuck listening to your thoughts for the next decade. Thanks but no thanks.”

A snort sounded from the opposite end of the table. Lucy grinned at Lottie. “Not likely,” she told her. “That’s not how things work for Remy’s kind.”

A sense of unease crawled up my back. Lucy knew that I’d bonded to Asher, then Gabe, and that my bond with Asher had broken, but I hadn’t told her that I differed from other Healers in that way. Before me, the Blackwells had never heard of a Healer bonding with more than one person.

“How do you know?” Asher asked her in a quiet voice.

She chewed on the end of a slightly smashed sandwich before answering. “That book I’ve been reading, the one Remy stole from Alcais—it talks about it.”

Erin’s brows shot up, and I winced. Awesome way for my friend to find out that I’d stolen from her brother. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “He was acting suspicious and . . .” My voice trailed off when she laughed.

“Can I call you Captain Klepto? Pretty please?” To Lucy, she asked, “Can I see it?”

My sister ran into the house to get the book and returned a moment later. She handed it over, and Erin studied it, flipping the leather-bound volume over in her hand. Her smile faded into a thoughtful frown.

“I remember this from Franc’s library. If I recall right, a Protector wrote this, though I have no idea how Franc ended up with it.”

She passed the book back to Lucy. “I’m not sure why Alcais would have had this. It’s full of extremist crap. Protectors advocating killing off babies born with both Healer and Protector blood. I couldn’t get through it. When I first saw it in the library, I remember thinking it was total mythology. We had never heard of anyone like you, Remy, except in stories.”

“The book is about a lot more than that,” Lucy said. “It says there were others like Remy. Listen . . .” She flipped to a page and read out loud.
“Children born with the blood of both Healers and Protectors should be feared. These half breeds have shown a propensity to grow in power as they age. More to the point, we suspect they will grow into a power that could endanger all of our kind and should therefore be exterminated before they destroy us.”
She looked up at me. “Do you think that power they’re talking about is the way you can hurt people?”

“No idea,” I said.

That passage had made my stomach knot when I read it, imagining babies being killed because some bastards were afraid of what might be—the mythical power of the half breeds. In my mind, I gave the author the finger for referring to my kind like livestock. The book hadn’t described what our power was, and I’d been unable to continue reading after it described myriad ways to dispose of the “half-breed babies.” That my grandfather had owned such a book made me sick, and I wondered how much of it he believed.

“It could be talking about how she can heal immortality. But that would assume they knew that Protectors could become immortal. Does the book mention that?” Asher asked.

Lucy shook her head.

“What does this have to do with the way Remy bonds?” Erin asked.

“There’s a section in here that describes it,” Lucy said.

Asher and Gabe both looked at me and I grimaced helplessly. I didn’t remember reading anything about that. Maybe it had been in the part of the book I’d skimmed.

“What does it say?” Asher prompted Lucy. “You know, female Healers and Protectors used to bond all the time. What made you think Remy couldn’t bond with Lottie?”

That sense of unease returned, and I set my fork down.

“Well, they don’t exactly love each other. Sorry, Lottie. No offense.”

“None taken,” Lottie said.

“What does that have to do with it?” Gabe asked. “Bonds aren’t about emotions. They’re about compatible power, each person’s energy helping the other’s to strengthen.”

Tension radiated from Gabe and Asher. Both men had leaned forward in their seats and stared at her with intense expressions. Lucy finally picked up on it, her confusion palpable as she tried to understand why this mattered to them so much. I swallowed around a lump of dread and folded my hands in my lap, waiting for what I guessed was coming.

She spoke in a halting voice, her eyes flicking to me with worry. “Um, Remy’s bonds are. About feelings, I mean. The book says full-blooded Healers and Protectors bonded against their will, but Remy’s kind are different. Some never bonded at all, and others bonded more than once, but always their emotions were involved. Let me see if I can remember exactly what it said . . .”

No, Lucy. Please don’t say it.

She paused, thinking, and then snapped her fingers. “Right! I remember now. The book says that they seemed to form bonds ‘according to their hearts.’ ”

Lucy’s announcement met with a weighed kind of silence. Her gaze bounced from Asher to Gabe to me. A flush of realization swept over her face when she saw my face and the sorrow I couldn’t hide. Too late she understood why this mattered, finally connecting my circumstances with Gabe and Asher to the state of our bonds. Our eyes met and hers were filled with apology.

The table shook when Asher rose in a hurry and bumped it. A glass tipped over, spilling water everywhere. Everyone stared at him in shock, but his entire focus was on me. His enraged action had even surprised him, and he breathed in quick gasps. I’d never seen so much pain in his eyes, and it killed me to be the one causing it.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” he said. “I knew it. From the moment I saw the two of you together in Blackwell Falls last September, I knew you cared about him more than you wanted to admit.”

I shook my head in denial. I hadn’t known. Not then. My hands clenched in a painful grip. Asher and Gabe had said that I was controlling the bond somehow, but I hadn’t believed them. It had been one more thing I hadn’t understood and shoved away into a box because I couldn’t deal with what it might mean. My heart betrayed me, becoming a reckless thing that did whatever the hell it wanted and hurting others in the process. It didn’t matter that I’d been honorable. No, my damned bonds behaved like a lie detector telling everyone around me what I felt before I even understood it myself. It wasn’t fair. I bit the inside of my cheek to fight back the tears.

“Asher, calm down,” Gabe said in a soothing voice, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Remy has always been true to you. You know that.”

Asher laughed and the sound of it grated my heart. “Except when she bonded to you. And now she’s yours. The proof is written all over you two.” His gaze fell to Gabe’s hand like he knew that his brother had offered comfort after hearing my thoughts. “I’m outta here. I’m not going to stick around here to watch you two getting together.”

He shoved his chair away from the table. He made it as far as the conservatory before Gabe stopped him by gripping the lapels of Asher’s jacket. “No, it’s not safe. We have to talk.”

Asher didn’t struggle. He looked at Gabe’s hands and then at his face. “You know you can keep me here against my will. I’m too weak to fight you now. I’m asking you to let me go. Don’t do this to me in front of her,” he said in a proud voice.

He wouldn’t look at me. Clearly, he considered Gabe the victor, and the humiliation changed the way he carried himself. His shoulders slumped, and his movements were jerky. Gabe struggled for a long minute, a muscle working in his cheek, and then he stepped back, letting his brother go. Without another word, Asher walked away, disappearing down the stairs. A moment later, the front door slammed.

This was everything I hadn’t wanted to happen. I loved Asher, and I’d never wanted to hurt him. Instead, I’d devastated him.

I shoved back my chair and rose, ignoring the stares of Lottie, Lucy, and Erin. Gabe stood in the conservatory, looking torn between crying and punching something when I approached him.

“You’re going after him,” he said.

“I have to. I can’t let him go like this, imagining that we . . .” I gulped.

My mind shut down on the possibilities of what Asher might be imagining. The things he thought Gabe and I might have done while I’d still been with Asher.

Gabe nodded. “Be careful. I’ll be here when you need me.”

I took off at a run, hoping I’d know what to say when I found Asher.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

O
utside, cars and people surged down the busy street. I shoved past a man in a suit to catch up with Asher halfway down the block.

He spun around when I said his name. “Damn it, Remy. Get the hell away from me!”

He turned on his heel and charged ahead.

I ignored his command and spoke to his back. “You know I was never unfaithful to you. You were everything to me.”

The muscles in his shoulders tensed, but he didn’t slow. “I mean it. I don’t want to talk to you,” he said.

That hurt, but I didn’t let it sway me. I couldn’t let him go off on his own like this. Aside from the danger, I couldn’t stand that he doubted how I felt about him. “When my grandfather’s men shot you, and I thought I watched you die, I wanted to die, too. And when they tortured me, I hoped they would kill me because it hurt too much to be alive without you.”

He stopped so abruptly that I almost ran into him. The glare on his face threatened to burn me alive when he did an about-face. “How long did you feel that way before you bonded to Gabe?”

“You can’t blame me for this. I didn’t plan it. Gabe was my friend and nothing more.”

Asher’s eyes darkened. “
Was
your friend,” he repeated in a dangerous voice. “You admit something’s happened?”

“The day we arrived in London. Gabe found out that we broke up and he asked me to give him a chance,” I admitted.

“And what did you tell him?”

“That I couldn’t hurt you like that.” Asher’s expression lightened infinitesimally. Honesty compelled me to barrel forward. “But I do have feelings for him. I realized it while he was gone these last few days. I told him as much last night.”

Asher threw back his head like he would shout at the sky, but he merely gritted his teeth.

I continued. “I asked him to give me time. To give you time, Asher. Neither of us wanted to hurt you.”

“Bang-up job you did, Remy. Finding out like this made everything better.” I cringed at the hate in his voice. “Go back to him, and stay the fuck away from me.”

He struck out at me with his words and then walked away. Walked away like he had been doing for months, while I begged him to love me like a pathetic girl. The injustice of it made it difficult to swallow his rage.

I yelled at his retreating back. “Right. I forgot that you were the honorable one in our relationship. The one who never lied. You said we were forever, Asher, but that wasn’t true, was it? Who lied first? Did you ever care for me, or was I just your ticket to feeling human again? Lucky for you, you hate it so much, and you can blame me for that, too!”

A woman pushing a stroller on the opposite side of the street eyed me, and I flushed with embarrassment. I’d been reduced to screaming at Asher on a London street when he wanted nothing to do with me. For months, he’d had all the control, while I reacted to whatever he did. You could only run after a thing for so long before you tired of never reaching it.

Tears blinded me as I strode back to the house. This had gotten so out of hand, and I couldn’t fix things. Feet pounded on the pavement behind me, and I whipped around. Asher’s body slammed into mine, and he lifted me off my feet. He kissed me hard, his hold on me fierce. I didn’t fight him, but I couldn’t kiss him back. We’d gone too far past that. Asher lifted his head when he realized I wasn’t responding, and we stared at each other at a loss for words. What did you say to someone you’d fallen out of love with?

“I ruined everything,” he whispered, his breath sweet on my lips. “You accused me of wanting you to be the type of girl who needed a hero, and you were right. I wanted you to need me that way.”

But I couldn’t. I would never be that girl. Too many years, I’d been alone and waiting for someone to save me from the brutality that my stepfather had inflicted on me. Somewhere along the way, I’d stopped waiting and learned to fight. That wasn’t something I could undo for him. I didn’t want to be that fearful, angry girl anymore. I’d worked too hard to change.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. I was sorry I couldn’t be the girl he needed.

“You tried to tell me, but I kept pushing you. Last June, you almost went to San Francisco alone because I wanted you to do things my way on my time.”

We’d fought about me going to see my grandfather. At the time, I’d hoped that Franc would have answers, some way for Asher and me to have a future together. Asher had only seen the danger in my going, and in the end, he’d been right.

He shook his head, and then touched a thumb to the corner of my mouth. “I tried to keep you hidden, but that was never going to be a possibility for you. You were always going to leave.”

“You got hurt,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry. I don’t blame you for hating me for what they did to you.”

He frowned down at me. “What are you talking about?”

“It was my fault. I insisted we go there, and you got caught. And because of me, you felt everything they did to you.”

“Is that what you think? That I pushed you away because of that?” He swore and loosened his hold on me to pace away a few steps. He rocked on his heels, staring off into space across the street.

“Asher?” I asked in confusion.

He threw me a sad smile over his shoulder. “It was shame, Remy. I pushed you away because I was ashamed.”

“I don’t understand . . .” I said, circling around him.