Impulse (55 page)

In the following days, Justus was despondent and locked himself away in his room. I never knew what transpired that night when we left him alone.

On the third day, he emerged from his bedroom as if nothing had happened. After six hours in the training room, a shower, and time in his study alone, he left the house to pick up some barbeque. The routine was the same, but Justus was not.
Was he upset with me? Was it the woman? Did he have remorse for killing a former Council member?
I wanted him to speak. I wanted him to yell, dammit.

I just wanted him back.

Justus mashed a few crumbs on his plate with his finger. The painting behind him would never look the same again. If it was true to her looks, then Eleanor was a beautiful young woman. I was awed by how romantic and evocative his painting was. Kindness colored her face as a man of fire dared to reach for her, a woman who was a reflection of innocence. Sadness encased it like a fragile frame. I wanted him to take it down, but it wasn’t my place to make such a request. His torch had burned for that woman for so long that it was all he had left of an unrequited love.

The effects of the Vampire blood completely diminished and my eyes returned to their luminous green. The transfusion was a success, thanks to the Relic, although how I temporarily acquired Vampire traits was still a mystery. I liked Page and wondered if it would be out of line to have a girl’s night out with her and Sunny.

Logan called with news that Leo had approached the Lord of their Pride for a personal meeting, but they would not bend in pursuing punishment against Tarek. His family ranked too high, and tainting their name with the affairs of a Mage would only ruin the reputation of the Cross family. Logan was infuriated, and I knew he would never let it go.

“Ghuardian, what do you think about everything Merc said about me being…” I averted my eyes. “…a mutant?”

He folded his fingers and stared at a candle on the table. “Mother Nature makes evolutionary leaps; one Breed is created and another dies out.”

“But I wasn’t a leap. I was a Petri-dish experiment.”

His jaw tightened. “You are a Mage.”

A quiet moment passed between us. “He deserved what he got,” I said. “Merc would have never paid for his crime if we left it up to the Mageri.”

His chest swelled with a thoughtful breath and Justus turned the rim of his plate.

I stared at my half-eaten cheesecake. “What’s the plan?”

He scooped a large piece of the dessert into his mouth and wiped a smudge of icing on his plate. If Justus didn’t have to use a fork, he usually didn’t. It was the first meal he had eaten in two days, so I let it slide without a remark.

“Novis is right,” he said. “We’ll locate the labs and shut them down; the breeding must stop. HALO can no longer focus on Nero’s case; we’re expending too much energy hunting a lion when the forest around us is burning. He is in a league of men with a massive amount of money and connections; it would be a greater catastrophe to have them acquire this knowledge. It’s more than the names on the list. There are doctors and scientists, papers and files—their progress may have expanded tremendously since you were born. It could compromise the safety of all humanity. Nero comes later.”

“Are you afraid that we’ll find a way to turn all humans into one of us?”

Justus lifted his eyes to mine. “We are not gods. My imagination is not large enough to fathom what the consequences of this could be. What if they found a way to extract gifts and plant them into anyone they wanted?”

I leaned back in my chair. That was a frightening idea.

He noticed my hands. “Where’s your ring?”

My face must have turned the color of roses when I thought about Logan taking it off. “You know I don’t wear it all the time,” I said, concealing my smile.

He nodded and rested his chin thoughtfully on a fist. “No need to explain, I’m not a fool.”

“I love the ring, you know that.”

His large hands covered his face and rubbed away the hard edges. “Let’s end this conversation before one of us leaves the table from embarrassment.”

“If anyone finds out what I am, it could bring trouble. They’ll see me as an abomination. I’ve had a good dose of criticism because of Logan and I expect there will be more to come. That list won’t be made public, will it?”

“Over my dead body. Conceal who you are, Silver. Never let anyone see the truth.”

The painting loomed over him like a black cloud and my gaze lowered. The carnage and devastation wrought on his face when Merc revealed the truth would live in my mind for a lifetime. The bloodstain in the dirt was enough for me to know that whatever was said between them would be buried with that blood. There was no struggle; Merc died in the exact spot that I last saw him. I couldn’t imagine what was said between them that would have pushed Justus over the edge.

I knew the pain of living with a wound that no one could see, one that split you wide open beneath the surface. The woman he painted was the only woman who could have truly loved him, because she was the only one who could deny him.

Scooting my chair back, I abruptly got up and stood beside Justus as he tapped a fork absently against his plate. It didn’t look like he’d been trimming his hair lately; it was growing out uneven.

I lifted his heavy arm from the table and sat on his lap. It startled him so severely that his fork tumbled from his hand to the floor. I needed to offer him the comfort he deserved to have that
no one
ever gave him. This man had a right to grieve.

My arms wrapped around his neck and I hugged him tightly. Justus predictably froze up like a statue.

There was something heartbreaking about how standoffish he was, now that I knew why. My cheek pressed against his so that he could hear the importance of my words. I doubted that anyone had ever given him these words before.

“I love you, Ghuardian.
I love you
.” When he started to back away, my hands gripped his shoulders. “You’re all the family I’ve got. You feed me, care for me, teach me, protect me, and put up with me. That’s love—more than my own mother ever offered. You don’t have to say it back.” My voice cracked. “What can I do to take your pain away?”

My heart thundered in my chest when he dropped his head against my shoulder and his body sagged. “Don’t speak of my charm. The jokes—they sting.”

Tears welled in my eyes, knowing every sharp word I’d made about his gift was a dagger to his heart. It never occurred to me that behind the façade of a player was a man who had been played by fate. Justus could never feel a genuine word or touch from a woman without knowing it was a lie. I wept on the thick skin of his neck and his arms stroked my back softly. While he had initiated touch on his own in the past, Justus never wanted to receive it. Holding him this way was a privilege.

“Learner, don’t cry.”

“I had no idea.”

I glanced up at the painting and tears blurred my vision. I’d always just seen a woman in the water, begging the man to help who didn’t try. In reality, the man would never be able to reach her because she was just a memory.

Justus stroked my back, softening my quick breaths. His skin was splotchy and red, uncomfortable with the intimacy. For him, intimacy wasn’t about sex; it was the act of receiving love.

My face contorted with frustration. I was supposed to be comforting
him
. “Stop doing that!” I wiped my nose and sat up to look at his face. “Dammit, just let me do this.”

Amusement flared in his eyes as he stared at my tear-stained face and I caught a glimmer of wetness in the corners of his eyes. He never displayed emotions and I had struggled with that same behavior most of my life because it made me feel weak.

When I reached out and touched his tears, he flinched. His cheeks reddened and his lips formed a thin line.

I held his face in my hands, but the look in his tortured eyes devastated me.

“We’re stubborn and we fight, but I care for you. I respect the man that you are and despite your horrendous table manners, you’re an excellent Ghuardian. We’re more alike than I think either of us will admit to,” I said with a short laugh. “You have issues with personal space—I get it. Someone broke my trust a long time ago and that’s what I have to deal with. It may not seem like it, but I trust you emphatically. This doesn’t change anything between us, so let’s keep talking to each other the way we always have. No one has to know.”

My hands gave his shoulders a firm squeeze. “I want nothing more than to see you happy, even if I do make you
miserable
.” My head fell on his shoulder, and I smiled thoughtfully.

“What am I to say to that?” he breathed.

“Nothing, Ghuardian. Say nothing. Just hug me and I’ll leave you alone so you can enjoy the glory of ruining that dessert with your fingers.”

His heavy arms slid around my hips, settling into the idea that I wasn’t letting go until we had our moment.

“If Logan is unable to respect the unique woman that you are, I will teach him a lesson with my fists.”

“Don’t beat up my boyfriends,” I said with a smile in my voice.

He sighed. “You choose who you want and I’ll back you. They just better treat you right, even though you’re the most cantankerous woman I have ever met.”

“So that’s why you tried to pick me up in the bar?”

He took a long breath through his nose and chuckled. “You were a puzzle.”

“Well, have you figured me out yet?”

“No, Learner. All I can do is teach you what I know.”

The loss he must have felt from severing the relationship with his Creator was difficult to imagine. Could I live without Justus in my life?

“You can have any woman you want, and that’s not a curse,” I said. “Choose someone who deserves you; just because they’re charmed by you doesn’t mean they can’t see beyond that.”

“I don’t wish to discuss this, not now,” he said in a sullen voice.

Eleanor may have never loved him the way he wanted because he never allowed himself to get close enough to find out.

I hugged him tighter. “Someday you’ll have your happy ending.”

“No ending is happy,” he murmured.

So difficult
.

“Then someday you’ll have a happy beginning. No arguments.”

While I could say that Justus gave me a short hug and we finished our cheesecake, the truth of the matter is that he held me like that for a very long time, allowing himself to finally grieve… and be comforted.