Odd Melody (Odd Series Book 2) (12 page)

Julia walked toward Vance and his dark head bowed down. Still, neither seemed to notice the other. Then suddenly…a light sprang between them. They both slammed to a stop. Julia literally stumbled. Vance, more graceful, did not stumble, but he tilted his head. Neither seemed to particularly notice the light, but from above, I both noticed and recognized it. Without really thinking about it, I reached to Chance and he took my hand.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, but I could hear him as if he had spoken in my mind.

“It’s not what you think.” But I clutched his hand.

The two on the street stood still. Neither looked up but the light trembled between them, a shimmering new connection. Julia moved her hand back and forth, and I remembered doing something similar the first time it had appeared between Chance and me.

Was this the first time she had seen it, then?

I trembled in the circle of Chance’s arms. “Are you doing it?”

“No.” His voice stayed calm, not accusing, not cruel. Lacking its usual Chance-ness. Almost kind, even, and hardly sounding like himself at all.

“It’s not what you think. It’s not that.” I was repeating myself and a bit of a wobble trembled in my tone. He wasn’t arguing, but I needed him to believe me. I needed to believe me.

Julia’s pale face tilted up. Lamp light and distance washed away recognizable color and expression from her lovely features.

At nearly the same moment, Vance looked up. Unlike Chance and me when the cord first appeared, they rushed toward each other. I nearly ran down the hill as soon as I detected them starting to move. I don’t know if I meant to stop them, or yell, or what I meant to do because Chance pinned me to the brick wall behind us.

“No.” He glared at me with those glass green alien eyes of his. “They have no more control over it than you do.”

“We control it.” I kicked him. It wasn’t a terribly effective kick. He pressed too close. He always pushed too damned close.

Chance’s breath and his scent, that summer storm scent, closed in as he attempted to block the sight at the bottom of the hill from me. But it was all I could see. Vance held my friend. He
kissed
her. My own betrayal rang in my head, shouting that this was only what I deserved.

“We control it barely.”

I could no more escape Chance’s words as they battered me into the brick than I could escape his hold.

“We control it part of the time. We are neither of us human, as I remind you all of the time, and never were. We are not, and have never been, mortal, we’re stronger and more than that. He
was
mortal. He was human. She is human. You are not. I am not. You cannot compare what we do to what they are capable of.”

I shoved at him, but I would have had equal success shoving the brick wall. “Move.” Now I whispered. I did not want them to look up the hill and see me. To know I’d seen, to see me with him… “Let me go.”

“Not until you’re under control.” He sounded so damned calm, I wanted to slap him.

“Let me go.” I tried to sound reasonable.

The two broke apart. Vance backed away from her. The silver cord shattered, and they did not appear happy even from a distance.

Chance bent his head to touch mine, his forehead resting against my temple. “You don’t pick your soul.” His voice barely carried over the snow. Somehow, I felt branded by the words. “You have to have faith that it’s right.”

“She had to know.” My voice rang cold and cruel and all the things his usually was.

“No more than we did.”

“Then he did.” This time I could hear accusation in my own tone. I didn’t want to be right, but part of me worried I had to be.

“I don’t think he did.”

“You brought me out here on purpose.” I dragged a hand through my hair, wishing I could slap the thoughts that whirled around like angry bees through my head.

“No.” Chance appeared stunned. “I don’t want to hurt you. Not like that. I don’t like him, but I will win fairly. I didn’t know.”

I shoved at him again and searched down the hill. He moved when I shoved and gave me my space. No one was there. I stared down at my feet and then back at him. For once, he did not glare back at me. He looked away.

I stood there breathing the cold, cold air. The kind of air that hurt to inhale, that froze the snot in the nose. The kind that made icy knives dive into the chest with each breath, making lungs bleed. Or perhaps only my heart bled.

I stood there. Alone. Then I moved to him. I wrapped my arms around Chance and my head rested under his chin. His arms circled me after a moment. He sighed and held me tight. His hands clutched at me, and I sensed a throb in the line. It pulsed around me, a living thing, a lifeline that kept me from being so alone.

“Pause the rules.” I whispered the plea, unable to say it out loud.

“Why?” He sounded tired.

Under other circumstances, I might have been amused that I had managed to wear out Mr. Endless Energy. Tonight I felt battered, the win less of a success than proof we’d both been through hell and back lately. “If they can’t fight it…maybe I shouldn’t have to either.”

He sighed. “I’m not your revenge.” He began to pull away.

For once, I held onto Chance and really looked at him. “No, not that.” It wasn’t that. He met my gaze as if trying to follow me. “It’s more that, well, maybe you have a point. I don’t know really. I never tried
not
to fight.”

He studied me. Holding himself still and weighing my words. Finally, he wove his fingers into mine again and met my gaze. His other hand traced, with fingers long and strong, along my jaw line.

I shivered.

“You call
me
a monster for switching sides.” A smirk flitted across his face like a shadow across the moon. His expression was more Chance now than it had been a moment before.

I tried to shove away. “I changed my mind.”

He yanked me to my toes so we were eye to eye in a swift harsh move. “Didn’t you say you weren’t going to fight?”

His question threw me, but I met his gaze squarely. I breathed out in one long gust. He continued to hold me by the shoulders. Not in a romantic pose at all, more like one would hold someone they yelled at, but his voice hadn’t risen, not even a little. I worked to still my features, to settle my emotions and release all fight from my muscles. We had paused the rules. What would happen if I gave myself over to this? Even for a moment?

He closed the remaining distance but, instead of a kiss, he pressed his forehead to mine and let go of my shoulders. Dropping me abruptly back to my feet, he then ran those long clever fingers down my arms. He brushed his face against mine so our breath mingled. My pulse sped. Step by step, he backed me up until I again felt the brick at my back. Nose to nose. Then his hands pushed my hips hard into the wall. The breath whooshed out of me, and he bit gently at my jaw. Our eyes remained locked.

I whispered his name. My eyelids fluttered closed. “What are you doing?”

“What I want.” His voice rumbled with seduction. It slithered over my skin and I licked my dry lips, heart racing in response. “You said you wouldn’t fight me. Did you change your mind, Janie?”

I made a sound in my throat. It came out a bit like a gurgle. His fingers slid under my shirt. They wandered up my stomach and his lips traced my neck. I tried to turn my head to capture them, but he moved to my ear. “I want—” I couldn’t get anything more out than that. Maybe that was the whole thought. I wanted.

“Mm-hmm?”

“Chance.”

He continued to stay out of reach. His fingers found one nipple and toyed with it. It pebbled hard at his touch, and a small satisfied growl rumbled out of him.

I shifted, wanting more.

His power grazed mine.

I tried hard to remain passive, to not fight him as I had promised. “Chance.” I nearly moaned, and I seriously hated the edge of desperation that deepened my voice.

“By the way, Janie?” His face finally came back into my view. His eyes blazed, green fire and fury. “I like you better fighting.” His mouth finally closed over mine. He pushed me up and against the wall and wrapped me in that summer storm.

Heat and light and power coursed down my throat, and his tongue swept in my mouth with it all. I dug my fingers into his scalp and felt his answer in my own. He hiked me higher so that his body pressed against mine. I pulled from his mouth to gasp.

His gaze met mine. “Is this what you wanted?” Again, he kissed me and his power met mine in a blast of white. If sensation had sound, this would have been a scream of power.

I met him kiss for kiss. I tried to bury myself in the moment, in what we were. I did not even feel the tear slide down my cheek until his thumb wiped it away.

He broke from me and let me slip down the wall. He backed up and, when he looked at me, he seemed…hurt.

Chance, the indomitable, Chance the bad guy
hurt
.

“I fell for it.” I wasn’t sure if he spoke to me or just vented. “Proof that age is not enough to protect a man from a woman, I guess. Even I can hear what I want to, it would appear. I will repeat myself, Janie. I will repeat myself because I can feel you’re hurting.” He leaned close enough that we were eye to eye.

I said nothing. I just breathed, fast and hard, and ached with the unfulfilled need of him.

“I am not some tool for you to use. I can be hurt, too. You will not use me to hurt him. You will not use me to make yourself feel better if he hurts you. What stands between us is between
us
and has nothing to do with whatever—” He paused to wave an arm at the hill for emphasis, as if Vance would appear there at any given moment. “Whatever thing you have going on for the vampire. I don’t even know what I am talking about anymore.” He shoved a hand into his hair.

I reached toward him.

He stared at the offered hand. His angry expression burned then it crumpled around the edges. He took my hand. “We are going to be the worst soul mates in history.” He tugged me close and held me under the streetlights. And for about the tenth time since he had met me, he simply held me while I cried…exactly what I had needed to begin with.

When I had finally snuffled my last sniffle, I looked up at him. He remained the bad guy. I needed him to stay the bad guy.

He stared right back at me. He knew he was the bad guy.

“Well, if soul mate means you know when to back off and let me cry, you are getting better at that part, anyway.”

He sighed and disappeared. 

CHAPTER Eight

I stood in the cold for a few minutes holding my arms to my sides. If the Hammer came out, I wasn’t altogether sure I had it in me to deal with him. I felt sort of glad I hadn’t found him yet. It seemed like everything I thought I knew, I didn’t understand after all, and everyone I thought I understood, no longer acted in character…even me.

I wanted to go home, but I wasn’t even sure where home was anymore. I crunched my way through the still falling snow back to Odd Stuff. I let myself in with my key, still shiny and new, and still hanging on a key ring with a huge chunk of quartz. I rubbed the quartz. It had no mystical meaning to me. I wondered what wondrous things it meant to Mia, and I wondered if she felt any better.

Unwilling to wake her, I didn’t turn on any lights and was rewarded for my efforts by stubbing my toe and bashing my knee on a display the way upstairs through the store. I bit back a curse and finally groped my way to my room and closed the door. I fumbled at the bedside table and managed, after a series of curses and only knocking a few things to the floor, to get the lamp turned on.

I nearly shrieked when I saw the vampire lying sprawled on my bed.

I say nearly because vampiric speed enabled him to get off the bed in time to cover my mouth and wrap an arm around my waist in one move. His hair swirled around us, and I smelled steak, soap, and man.

I closed my eyes and tried to still my heart, which had nearly leapt from my chest in terror when I had first seen him. He slowly removed his hand and I gazed into his eyes. He met mine with a look that I could only describe as loving…had I not known better.

Now I knew that he probably did not love me. Or I told myself that. But I wanted him to and I wanted to love him. Even after what I had seen him do, I wanted the happiness I thought he made me feel. But then again, he didn’t know that I had seen him with Julia, so there was no reason for him to assume he should act guilty or anything... Since I really wasn’t in a position to call the kettle black in this case, I said nothing. I had secrets of my own.

I wanted our relationship to work. I’d chosen to be with Vance, after all. I didn’t chose all the Chance bullshit—it dropped in my lap and I’d been shoving it away with both hands…mostly.

What if? What if he managed to stay away from her? I did not want Chance, not really—he was a bad guy, right? And Vance had walked away from Julia. He had come to me. Maybe…

Wait,
why
had he come?

I met his gaze and let the cool part of myself, the part that I had only discovered since meeting Chance, take over. I felt my eyes flash and hoped it did not show. Vance stilled and I wondered if it had. I couldn’t do anything about it, if he had seen it, so I waited.

He continued to hold me and, for a long moment, I think we both waited for the other to say something. When neither of us broke the silence, he finally sighed. “I missed you tonight.”

I settled more comfortably into the solid firmness of his arms. For sturdiness, well, nothing can beat a vampire. I rested my arms atop his and studied his eyes. They glowed the same unrelenting sky blue that had first drawn me in like iron shavings to a magnet. We had been together for a week now, officially, and part of me still marveled at the fact that someone as wonderful as him would want to be with someone as plain and ordinary as me.

Okay, half siren, half fairy, whatever-I-was-now was not ordinary. But to me, well, I was still plain Jane. Simply me. Who
happened
to have this entire mess slammed into my lap when I tried to help my best friend. In my head, I was still
just
me. And he was beautiful. The fact that I was allowed to touch him, taste him, be with him continued to be a wonder to me.