Secrets - [Guardian Trilogy 01] (33 page)

It wasn’t that there weren’t other girls—there’d been plenty over the years and there’d be plenty more in the future—but none of them
mattered
. They were all replaceable, interchangeable. Company was nice for a while, but eventually each one became too much trouble—too cumbersome for my way of life and had to be removed.

And I’d never actually cared what any of them thought. Had they discovered what I was, it wouldn’t have been a problem taking care of them. It
was
never a problem. From the moment I made the deal, I never looked back. I never missed my bloody soul for one Godforsaken moment. I made my bed, and I liked it. It was
my
life, so where did she get off—

The pressure of somebody staring at me interrupted my inner tirade. I looked over my shoulder and rolled my eyes. Fucking guardians.

“Couldn’t you have—”

“No” I said. “If I could’ve controlled the emotions in that room, we wouldn’t be standing here, would we? If anything, I made it worse.”

“How?”

“Are we sharing?” I snarled, stalking back into the building. I wanted to be alone, but Quintus followed me like a stray dog.

“Why did you make the situation worse?”

“I didn’t mean to, you moron.” I really hated this guy. I didn’t want to think about how I’d, once again, failed at something. “My emotions were sky high, and I think they fed hers. My feelings always fuel those around me.”

“Your emotions wouldn’t affect a guardian as powerful as her.”

“Well, she isn’t a guardian yet, is she? Besides, it was probably tenfold for her. She would’ve felt it on a different level than most. I never expected this conversation to go well. I never expected to have it with her.”

Quintus sniffed and looked more pious than ever. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“Why the fuck are you here?”

“To help her, but you have no reason to be here. If you’re not trying to keep her from becoming one of us, you have no business with her. I’ve never known a
jinni
to care for a human life.”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.” I started to walk away, but he grabbed my arm. I turned, connecting a hard right hook with his jaw. He stumbled back, but took the punch fairly well. A glimmer of respect for him slipped through my walls of annoyance. Nevertheless, it felt good to punch the bastard. But like any beast, once I had a taste I wanted more. I wanted Quintus’s blood, but guardians were hell to kill. I punched him a couple more time for pissing me off, then I continued to walk away.

“You can hit me all you want. Your actions speak louder than anything you could’ve said. You were telling her the truth. How did this happen?” He called after me.

 “Just back off.” I turned back to him. If this guy knew what was good for him, he’d let me leave.

“How did
you
fall in love?”

Now he was really pissing me off. “You understand we’re not friends, right? I don’t have friends. I don’t share feelings or watch chick movies.”

“You’ve turned your back on what you are. They’ll be coming to kill you, if I am not mistaken—and you’re protecting someone who’s destined to become your spiritual enemy, someone who wants nothing to do with you. It seems like if one person wants to at least try to help you, you would be grateful.”

I had a pretty good idea that he was mocking me, and I wanted to beat the stupid grin off his face. He couldn’t understand even a fraction of how devastating all of this was and would continue to be.

“You don’t want to help
me
, any more than you want to help her. I’m not stupid. You want to keep me away from her. As far as I can see, you guys never have really done a hell of a lot to help anyone. I’ve been here for nearly two hundred years and have never seen a guardian help a God damned person.” I hadn’t dealt much with them over my years, but the ones I had encountered were pompous, self-righteous assholes, just like this one. “Where were you when I played any one of the thousands of people? Where were you when I made my deal? Where were you when Olivia’s best friend died? What the fuck have you done to help anyone?”

Quintus’s eyes narrowed. “I have her best interest at heart. Olivia is mine. I’ll take care of her now. You can leave.”

“Yeah, well you’re doing a bang up job so far. You let her ex-boyfriend and her best friend die. You let her move in with a jinni. I know why I didn’t tell her everything, but why didn’t you? You could have given her some warning—”

“I cannot interfere. It doesn’t matter what happens during her human life.”

Typical.
“Then I’ll continue taking care of her, if it’s all the same to you.”

“You can never be together. It goes against natural order. You’re an abomination.”

I snorted. “Abomination? Take a look in the mirror.”

Quintus raised a hand as if to silence me. “I too have lived a long time, and I’ve heard of you. You have a reputation for being one of the smarter, more level-headed jinn, so I’ll trust that the concept isn’t too much for you: Leave Olivia alone.”

He was trying to rile me up again, but I wasn’t in the mood to play. “I’m an agent of chaos, so going against the natural order isn’t high on my list of reasons why we can’t be together. Something larger than the two of us is at work. Olivia isn’t yours as much as you to think she is.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at what’s in front of you. If Olivia was on board with your Guardian shit, she’d come back to you right away. I didn’t get the feeling that was going to happen. You seem to be right under me on her shit list, in fact. But there’s a difference. She loves me. She doesn’t love you.”

“She will understand. She’s like me—and she doesn’t really love you. It isn’t possible.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.”

“Why?”

“We’ve shared dreams from the moment we first laid eyes on one another. The longer we were together, the stronger that bond became. I feel what she feels like it’s my own sentiment. Her nervous butterflies flutter in
my
stomach. I sense her pain, her sadness, her hope as if she is stabbing me with them. We’re connected in a way well beyond the powers of mere jinn and guardians—your order be damned.” The guardian’s frown made me smile. “If anything, I’d say Olivia is and possibly will always be
mine
. Our souls are welded to one another. I doubt you can break the bond between us no matter what tricks you have up your sleeve.” Quintus looked irritated, but didn’t comment. He had a good poker face. Suddenly tired of our battle, I changed subjects—there was something I needed him for. “She isn’t safe. We should give her a few hours to calm down, then bring her back. Can you find her?” I asked.

“No.”

“Is this a ‘no’ I can’t, or a ‘no’ I won’t?”

“I cannot. Unless she asks for help, I have no way of locating her.”

“Do you have a car?”

“No.”

“Of course not. That’d be too easy. We’ll have to steal one.”

“You can’t steal a car.”

“I most certainly can.”

“It’s best to let her be. She needs to find her own way back. She needs to process what she’s learned. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t be perfectly safe when we’re not near her.”

“I’m not willing to leave that to chance. Something was watching her before we ever got involved. And though I haven’t fessed up to her, I know there’s a demon in town moving strategically closer to Olivia. Can you think of any reason why that would be? There’s something bigger than either of us knows happening. Even if she doesn’t want to see me, I have every intention on keeping her safe.”

“Her safety isn’t your concern. Walk away from this, Jinni. It isn’t your business,” Quintus said with a hint of warning. “There hasn’t been one like her since the old ones. What happens, happens. Olivia will find her way. You’ll just make her road to get there harder. She’ll die in a handful of weeks anyway. You can’t save her from that.”

“Then why didn’t he kill her that night? Why wait? Why was he just watching?”

“Because killing her wouldn’t help. If she dies, she’ll only become one of us sooner. The only way to prevent her transformation is to make her not want to come back, or convince her to become like you. Maybe you have a bigger part in their plan than you know.”

“Killing her friends and family would be in line with that. Make her bitter and angry at the world—it’s the first step in recruiting. Create a problem and amplify.”

“Yes, and then there’s you. Maybe that higher power you speak of is just that—someone stronger than you linking the two of you together, making you both feel like you’re in love so that she’ll choose your lifestyle easier. Love is quite a motivator, especially for a guardian.”

I didn’t respond, but it made sense. Part of me hoped it was true. If she chose to be like me, I could keep her and protect her forever. However, I knew it wasn’t true. The feelings I had for her weren’t hollow the way created ones always were. These feelings didn’t fade with distance. They were solid and almost tangible. The love I felt for her was real, and now one of us would die because it never should have been.

“What would have that kind of power?” I asked. “Love isn’t really something we deal with. I can’t see any jinni or demon making us think we’re in love. It’d never even occur to them. Love’s more your kind’s thing.”

“Well, we certainly didn’t set the two of you up.”

“What does that leave?”

“Nothing.”

“It leaves that it’s real. We met by luck, or whatever it is that brings two people together.”

“It isn’t real,” Quintus said with authority.

“Is that what you know or is that what you want?”

“It isn’t real,” he repeated, though not with as much confidence as before.

“Is her death in two months set in stone? What if she chooses not to be one of you or one of us, can she live a normal life?”

“Nothing’s set in stone. The universe is a constantly changing river, but I’ve never witnessed a destiny half as important as hers going off course. No one has ever chosen to not to join us, to my knowledge.” He shook his head. “And you know if she lives, you’ll die?”

“Yes.”

“And you still want that?”

“I could accept it. I want to know all of our options.”

“No matter what happens, you’ll be apart. If she becomes like you, she’ll hate you for it and leave you just the same. This all will end in hate. There’s no other way when you’re involved. There’s no happy ending for you.”

“I wouldn’t underestimate either of us, if I were you,” I said coldly, but the truth of his statement rang in my ears. “I never expected happiness out of this life. She was a gift, something I never imagined or deserved. She’s a pain in the ass, but she’s given me more than I ever dreamed of having. I’m not letting go.”

Quintus was jealous and couldn’t hide it; I could see his hatred for me clear on his face. I briefly wondered what exactly his deal was. What did he mean when he said Olivia was his? I reconsidered killing him.

 “You could just kill her.”

“What?” I looked at him, my heart hardly beating. Surely I miss understood what he said.

“It’s a viable option.”

“Killing Olivia is
not
a viable option.”

“It’d save us a lot of trouble. You kill her, and you’ll save both her and yourself. She’ll fulfill her destiny and become one of us. Natural order will be restored to all those involved, and you’ll be safe from retribution since you followed the rules. Everyone wins. She won’t stay dead, so it isn’t like you’re really killing her.”

Was he testing me? “I can’t kill her.”

“It isn’t like you haven’t killed people. It isn’t like you won’t kill people again.” I realized then that no matter how “good” Quintus was, he had lost his humanity. He didn’t understand what it meant to be alive anymore. He didn’t understand the depth of human emotion. He was just as inhuman and rigid as the jinn.

“I guess I should’ve said, ‘I
won’t
kill her.’”

When Quintus saw I wasn’t going to change my mind, he shrugged and paced around the apartment. Suddenly he stopped and tipped his head skyward, then he turned abruptly. “I have to go.”