Lissa Kasey - Dominion 3 - Conviction (3 page)

“I’m surprised Sei didn’t want to stay in the lodge.” He was sort of high maintenance.
“He thinks people are staring at him. And I suppose sometimes they are. They will sneak in, have a warm bath, and make it back to their cabin before morning.” Jamie wasn’t even breathing hard, though he pushed fast enough to make me strain to keep up. “Do you want dinner at the lodge or the cabin?”
“Cabin.” Watching all the couples together at the lodge would only grate at my loneliness. At least Jamie was friendly company. And the heavy wet feeling of the air told me snow was coming. “There’s going to be snow.”
Jamie adjusted his hat, glanced at the sky, and nodded to me.
It then occurred to me. “You planned to wear him out so he’d let Gabe take care of him, didn’t you?”
A ghost of a smile touched Jamie’s lips. “Don’t know what you mean.” I couldn’t keep the grin off my face as I pushed forward, looking forward to getting back to the cabin and out of the cold.

B
Y THE
time we slid to the door, the snow had already begun blowing something fierce. Inside, I set the skis aside and stripped out of the snowsuit, wrapping myself up in the heavy down blankets of my bed. The fire had dimmed to almost nothing, but throwing a few more logs on, we got it roaring again.

“I have sandwiches or chili,” Jamie told me, digging around in the cooler. “Sei’s recipe for both, so the sandwiches are little on the odd side, and the chili is extra spicy.”

“Sandwiches.” It would take longer for the chili, and I suddenly felt really tired.
Jamie grunted in reply.
“He puts chocolate in the chili,” I said, really just to keep the quiet of the room from getting to me. “Did you know that? It’s tasty. Never had a recipe from him that I didn’t like.” Curling up under the warm blankets made me even sleepier. But I ate the sandwich Jamie gave me and then an apple.
The wind howled like something alive, whipping past the cabin so hard the walls and roof creaked painfully. The crackling fire was the only noise other than our faint breathing. Pressure seemed to be building behind my eyes, like a headache was coming. Only I’d never felt anything like this before.
“Did you bring a weather radio?”
As far north as we were, cell reception was spotty. We had plenty of wood to last a whole winter if we needed. Food not so much. We’d only packed for three days. Jamie could change and hunt, but nothing much would be outside in bad weather. So the pickings would be slim.
He dropped the radio into my lap. I flicked it on, grinning like a fool. The guy must have been in Cub Scouts or something. And since he turned into a bear on the new moon, that just made me laugh like a lunatic.

I wiped at my eyes and waved a hand at him. “I think I’m just tired. It wasn’t that funny. Sorry.” Tuning to the first weather station I could find, I listened. Six to eight inches predicted overnight. That was doable. Forty-mile-an-hour wind gusts, not so much.

“Sounds like we’re in for a blizzard.” And for some reason, my feet felt frozen. In fact, my hands had that numb feel they got if you took off your gloves in subzero temperatures. And my knees shook like Seiran’s often did. The little bit of skiing I’d done shouldn’t have tired me enough to feel this cold. “Maybe the chili would be good. Warm me up from the inside out.”

“Is the blizzard affecting you like the earth affects Sei?” “I can usually feel it coming. This one sort of rode up quick. Didn’t even see it on the news this morning before we left. But the water in the air is heavy, cold, and strong.” Suffocating. I gripped my inhaler, though I didn’t need it.
Jamie handed me a cup of tea that steamed and smelled sweet. “The chili will take a while to warm up. Drink some of this. It should calm you.”
“Sure.” I sipped the tea, used to the flowery taste, hoping it would ease some of the stiffness welling up in my limbs. Picking up a book, I wondered if I could focus enough to take my mind off the storm. The wind-sailing book had the advantage of being about warm weather and clear blue water. But ignoring the pounding cold was harder than I thought when I kept rereading the same sentence. I finally got up, threw another log in the fire, and sat down on the rug by the hearth.
Even sitting this close to the blaze didn’t warm me. For some reason I felt like I’d been dunked in a tank of ice water, and it was numbing everything from my toes on up. Closing my eyes, I focused on the moisture in the air, tried to give its fury some calm. Sadly, the water was just along for the ride, and I had no power over wind. I almost felt it whipping at me.
I tried to read again, using the firelight. Got through three pages when a huge gust of whatever was playing with water and wind ran through me like a cold-edged blade. Goosebumps rippled across my skin.
The fire flickered, then died with a hiss. Outside the wind howled an eerie echo around the cabin. I leapt to my feet and rushed into my coat, hat, and gloves. We weren’t safe here. The water pushed at me, panic rising in a way I’d never felt before. It told me that too much power hammered into the elements tonight. We were in danger.
“Where are you going?” Jamie asked as I bustled passed him and out the door. “It’s not safe out there. I’ll get the fire relit in a second.”
“Got to get to the lodge. Have to tell Sei, it’s not normal.” I rushed out into the snow, not waiting for his reply. Ice pellets smacked me around in an icy Jack Frost grip. Nothing happy holidays about this blast. The white flurry blew from every side. I stumbled through the deepening snow toward the spare Ski-Doo. We’d left it on the other side of Sei and Gabe’s cabin. If I could get the sled, Jamie and I had a chance.
Another gust hit me hard enough to knock me back into the snow. The swirling flakes blew heavily enough that I could hardly see anything as I struggled to get up. Which way was the other cabin? Hell, which way was the lodge? I moved toward something in the distance, hoping it was one of the cabins.
“Kelly?” Jamie’s voice sounded so far away. The raging wind made the words roll from different directions.
“Jamie?” I called back, trying to make out his location. Another step and I sunk further into the snow. It hadn’t been this deep just an hour before. How fast was it coming down? We’d have more than five feet by morning if this kept up.
As I shoved my legs through the snow, they felt like lead icicles. I should have put my snowsuit back on. But I had to get to the lodge. Had to tell Sei it wasn’t normal. Something kept muttering in my head, “It’s not normal.”
I stumbled again, falling face first in the snow. Floundering to the surface felt like drowning, and I’d had a few close calls over the years. A bad muscle cramp could take out the best swimmer. The cold, however, far outranked the heavy weight on your chest when water filled your lungs, because water killed you quickly. Frigid temps like these sent pain through your limbs, slowly took your consciousness, and finally, your life. The stinging cold nearly succeeded in taking me into the abyss when strong arms yanked me upward and began dragging me out of the snow.
By the time the cabin door closed behind us and the heat of the billowing fire hit me, I was shivering so bad my teeth chattered.
“That was a damn fool thing to do,” Jamie growled at me and started pulling off all my wet clothes. I tried to protest when he pushed my wet jeans and boxers down and pressed himself against me. When that didn’t ease the trembling, he stripped out of his own things, leaving his boxers on, wrapped the down blanket around us, and sat us in front of the fire. Had I not been freezing to death I’m sure I would have embarrassed myself in the arms of a very attractive and mostly naked man.
“S-sorry,” I said. “Have to tell S-Seiran. S’not natural.”
“We have to get you warm first. What’s not natural?”
“Storm,” I mumbled into his chest. He felt like a furnace burning against me. And I had my face pressed to his left pec, just inches from a tasty looking nipple. His arms, with bulging biceps, veins winding their way artistically down them, shoulders strong enough to carry a ten-point buck with ease, and sculpted abs, gave me something other than the cold to focus on.
I longed to count the defined muscles beneath all that sun-kissed skin. His dark nipples looked like bits of coffee with a dash of cream. How would they taste? Would his skin be salty or sweet? The cold that made me shake, made me sluggish enough to keep from reaching out for a lick of those mocha buds.
“What do you mean the storm isn’t natural? We’re in the middle of nowhere in northern Minnesota. Storms happen all the time. Bad ones.” Jamie’s voice rumbled from his chest where I rested my face. I couldn’t make out his tone because his body heat made me sleepy. “I don’t feel any magic in it.”
“Not natural,” I repeated. Magic or not, something out of the ordinary was happening, even if Minnesota was known for getting awful storms out of nowhere.
“How?”
“Lots of pressure letting go, but no build up.”
“Like an earthquake?”
“Feels like a living thing.”
“All magic is a living thing. All elements are as well. Is this different than a bad rainstorm?” Jamie seemed to be searching my face for something.
I shrugged, glad the feeling began to return to my limbs. I wondered if I had frostbite. But the feeling of the fury outside still beat at me hard enough that I clung to Jamie, not caring if all my fingers or toes fell off. The water in the air almost seemed to call for help as it was frozen and tossed about fiercely. “Talk to me, please.”
Jamie sat silently for a few seconds before saying, “I’m not much of a talker. That’s more Gabe’s thing. Maybe you should talk. Tell me why I find Sei in your bed most mornings now?”
I sighed. “I’m having nightmares, that’s all.”
“From when Sei was kidnapped?”
“Yeah. He wakes me up, curls up with me, and I sleep better. It’s no big deal.”
“You were in love with him once.”
“Nah. It was a crush. I get that now. It was a fantasy. I dreamt of taking care of him before I even knew him. But I could never be what he needs.”
Jamie shifted my weight in his lap and pulled the blanket tighter around us. “You’re a nice guy. Happy, smart, with the exception of running out into a snowstorm, and solid, you’re not bouncing from relationship to relationship, job to job. Sei needs those things in his life, even if it’s not in an intimate way.”
“I wish I’d approached him years ago. Maybe it would have stopped all the stuff from happening. Maybe Sei would be better on the path to healing. I shouldn’t have followed the crowd and kept my distance. He just seemed so different.” I settled deeper into Jamie’s embrace, enjoying his heat and feeling my body light up in a somewhat embarrassing way. “I want people to stop trying to hurt him. He needs a chance at a normal life.”
“I agree.”
“Hmm.” I looked up at him. His blond hair tickled my bare shoulders. “Does it ever bug you to see Sei and Gabe together?”
“No. Gabe treats Seiran like he’s the most important person in the world and at the same time doesn’t let him get away with anything. I can’t think of anyone who’d have a better handle on Sei than Gabe.”
For a guy who was so messed up in his perception of the world, Seiran sure had a lot of great things going for him. I had a handful of siblings, and while my mom wasn’t upfront and angry about me being gay, most of my siblings were. Jamie obviously had no problem with it. “You’re a great big brother.”
He laughed hard enough that we both shook. “Sei calls me a stalker. Says I’m creepy ’cause I pay too close attention to him. He hates when I dote on him.”
“His view of the world is a little skewed.”
“Yeah. We’re working on that.” He got up, lifting me like I weighed nothing, and carried us to his bed, which was closer, before burying us both beneath a mound of blankets.
“And this bed’s just right!” I laughed, cramming myself up against him.
“Watch it, Goldilocks.”
The storm didn’t feel so terrible with Jamie blocking the rest of the world out. I wrapped myself around him, basking in his heat and praying he didn’t cry straight-boy foul and push me away.
He settled into the single pillow and closed his eyes. His even breaths helped lull me to a deep dreamless sleep.

T
HE
panic of not being able to find Kelly for those few minutes in the blizzard nearly had me screaming. It was like being shot and watching Sei being taken away all over again. The fear and sense of helplessness was not something I handled well. If not for my nurse training I’d probably have been a puddle of panic on the cabin floor. I tried to not think too hard on the feelings. He was becoming family, after all. I had always had a strong desire to take care of my family.

Lying with his naked body pressed beneath mine made me want very unbrotherly things. His trim form, muscularly toned legs and thighs, strong shoulders, and flat stomach had my mind wandering in inappropriate directions. At least I kept my hands in check. He needed comfort, not my big paws molesting him.

The terror on his face when he’d fled for the door made my heart pound. He’d been awake, shivering by the fire moments before. That very same tremble that haunted Sei for months. Watching it build had been a slow study in torture. But just like with my little brother, I didn’t know what caused it so had no way to prevent it. As a registered nurse I knew a lot about medicine and illness. What was happening to them wasn’t biological. Maybe I should have studied psychiatry instead.

Kelly shifted in his sleep, making a little pained sound that was like a stab in my chest. I relaxed my grip on him, fearing I was hurting him. After he’d fallen asleep, I’d searched him from head to toe for any signs of frostbite. He’d been clean, but the tremor returned each time I stopped touching him. Now I held him tightly, like sleep could steal him from me again.

The wind outside blew strong enough to make the cabin creak, and snow piled to the edges of the two windows. I stopped checking when the white flakes built midway up. My ears kept searching for the sound of Gabe and Sei’s snowmobile returning, keeping me awake. Gabe’s strong sense of survival would keep them at the lodge. He’d keep Sei safe at all costs. I had faith in him.