Sin of Fury (37 page)

Jamie winced, putting her hands in her
pockets. “I’m sorry about that...”

“
Don’t worry, he didn’t. As
you can see,” she smiled broadly, getting up from her swivel chair.
Jamie stepped back to allow her some room and then gestured for her
to lead the way.

As Jessica started talking up a storm,
Jamie’s mind trailed off. She had woken up from the dream, bawling
her eyes out and screaming. She was grateful that Talon hadn’t been
there. It was the one thing that she feared most. That dream had
become the bane of her existence, and she had all but forgotten it.
It was so realistic, so... vivid. She never knew what to think
after having it, and it had been years since she had been sent to
therapy to subdue it.

While they walked through the blank
walls, she saw Vladimir come out of one of the rooms with a grimace
on his dazzling face.

“
You okay?” she asked,
doing as she had done all her life and forcing the dream from her
mind. He looked utterly fed up, as if he was going to rip his now
green and orange hair out.

He nodded, sighing dramatically.
“Women amaze me, sometimes. Like right now, I have no doubts as to
why I swing the other way.”

Jamie coughed as Jessica laughed. “Why
do you say that?”

“
My dear friend Devlin has
struck again, wounding my fragile heart. Sometimes, I just want to
drain her and throw her over a cliff. But, Lucian would be forever
furious with me and my shots at a long and sex-filled life would be
ruined.”

Her face flamed. “Is
that...so.”

“
Oh yes,” he said,
arrogance dripping from his voice. “One day, Lucian shall be mine
and Devlin will have run into a semi, causing her ultimate
demise.”

“
Do you hate her that
much?” Despite herself, she laughed. The look Vladimir gave her
would have sent her down the hall screaming, if she were
Devlin.

“
I do. It would bring me
the greatest pleasure in life to see her blood flowing down the
streets, with millions of people cheering as if a war just ended.
And then we can go to the nursery homes and set up a stripper’s
pole for them and...”

“
Wait, what?” Jamie
coughed, actually stopped walking.

Jessica laughed at her, grinning.
“Vladimir here is our local hospice robber. You know, like cradle
robber but...older.”

Vladimir took on a proud stance,
shoulders straightening and eyes taking on a distant look. “It is
my dream to take each and every wrinkled body I can and lavish them
with soft licks of...”

“
Stop it! I’m okay with you
being...obsessed with old people, but I think Jessica and I can
safely say that we do not want to know what you do behind closed
doors. Thank you very much.”

She expected him to get offended and
storm off in a wave of sparkles and hair gel, but he just laughed
and waved his hankie at her, an almost delicate act. Jamie laughed
even more.

Jessica showed her to the door while
they learned more about Vladimir’s obsession with Lucian and his
“nightly activities”, and before she knew it, Jamie was running
back to her room and grabbing the comfiest clothing she could find.
In only five minutes, she was in the workout room and surrounded by
leather, weights, and different types of bench presses.

Vladimir had said he could come back
in a bit with some refreshments for her, saying with quaint
finality that he was going to be her new friend, but she didn’t
wait for him. Talon was long gone, and she didn’t want to bother
him. She stripped off her shirt was glad the sports bra covered the
little marks that were placed over her breasts.

Jessica and Vladimir were a good
distraction, but the familiar feeling of ice ripping along her body
was distracting and mentally painful. She saw those amethyst eyes
almost everywhere she went, and the second she brought her fists up
to punch the sand back, hair pulled back and nerves strung out as
hell, she saw them. Staring at her.

In the sand bag.

Her chest tightened up to the point
where she could barely breath, but she forced herself to bring up
her leg in a roundhouse kick. The collision hurt, but at the same
time it was a relief.

In minutes, she was lost in a workout
routine and the world was closed off to nothing but the smell of
leather and leather. She forgot about Vladimir and even forgot
where she was. The more the dream tried to invade her mind, the
harder and faster she punched and kicked.

That is, until she heard a soft
growl.

She whipped around, not expecting to
see Talon standing there. His arms were crossed over his chest, his
legs crossed at his ankles, and the look in his eyes... She
shivered, reaching for her shirt.

He gave her a devil’s smile and then
strode forward, grabbing the shirt from her and throwing it over
his shoulder. Jamie couldn’t stop he flush that came over her body
as his hands came around her waist slowly pressing her body to
his.

“
What are you doing in
here?” she asked, out of breath. Jamie looked up at him, putting
her hands on his shoulders as he dragged her closer.

“
Watching my woman beat the
shit out of something. You know how unbelievably sexy that is?” His
voice was so deep; he sounded like he was going to tear her clothes
off right there. Her head shook mutely, and she stared up at him.
She noticed how soft yet firm his lips were, how his hair didn’t
look ruffled at all... She should change that, she thought,
starting to smile.

Still sounding like he was going to
take her up against the wall, she was shocked when he asked, “Why
am I seeing shadows in your eyes?”

Chapter 17

Talon grabbed hold of her hands and
pulled away from her. She stared at him, swallowing.

“Did you plan on telling me?” he asked
casually folding her fingers and then spreading them out, playing
with them. His hands were so much larger than hers that it shocked
her.

Jamie shrugged, trying to act casual.
Even though she was pretty sure he could feel how much her heart
was pounding, Jamie still hoped that he couldn’t tell how nervous
she suddenly was.

She swallowed again.

“What is it?” he asked, threading
their fingers and then dragging her to the bench press. He sat on
the hard leather, and she followed suit, quiet.

“I got sent to therapy for a while,
when I was younger,” she started, shrugging again. “I was just
thinking about the stuff that...led up to it.”

His arm came around her shoulders
tightly, and she leaned into him gratefully. After yesterday, she
had no doubt in her mind that he would be there for her when she
needed him. It still amazed her, though.

They hadn’t known each other for very
long, and they still had an odd connection. She could tell how
different he was with her, how much more...caring he was. She loved
it, she really did; but sometimes, she felt so...weak. As if she
had to depend on him for everything, including emotional
stability.

Jamie stared up at him, studying his
face. It was still the same face that she had seen the very first
time, ragged and strong and completely untamed. He was still the
same man, had the same physique, the same strong hands and the same
deep voice.

And she was still the weak one in the
relationship. She bit on her lip as he met her searching gaze, a
concerned look entering his eyes. “Mind elaborating?”

A hint of a smile touched her face.
She loved that he didn’t do preliminaries, that he cut straight to
the point and be damned with everything else. She wasn’t like that,
never had been. God, they were so different.

He was blunt, and, she assumed,
merciless when it came to other people. She was the shy worried one
that had to keep her head down because she feared they would see
bruises that were no longer there.

“Well... I got put into a hospital. No
one knew why, really. My mother said that she had been called and
rushed to meet me, and that was...it. I woke up for the first time
and I felt like I was dying all over again.”

His body tightened, tensed. Jamie
looked away, shaking her hair out of her ponytail and then messing
with it, hating how nervous she was getting with him.

“After they let me out, I started
having these dreams.” God, how stupid did she sound? Jamie
swallowed again, more nervously than before. Talon wasn’t saying a
thing, and recalling the dream, she realized that Talon and Zyn
were...a like.

“What were they about?” he asked
finally, breaking the silence.

She hesitated, wondering if she should
really tell him.

This was the man that been with her
through the most unimaginable situations. He had saved her,
provided for her, made love to her, and made her feel like she was
a woman. She owed it to him to tell whatever was bothering her,
whether it was crazy or not.

Her hands were shaking as she told him
about how her mother had given her away, how she had been forced to
stay with some man she had never met. Jamie didn’t bother to tell
him the name of the man -- it would make her seem even more crazy
than she already was. A person with that kind of name, posing as
her father?

Yeah...

Except, she wasn’t so sure that he was
“posing”. What if the dream had been real? She’d had it enough that
it was starting to seem real, but was that just her conscious
messing with her?

She swallowed. Talon was staring at
her, lips pressed, eyes unreadable. What was he thinking? That she
was crazy? She wouldn’t blame him if she did. Often enough she was
branded as crazy. Even Vladimir thought she was weird, she thought
mildly.

“How long ago did this happen?” he
finally asked.

She shrugged. “Ten years or so. I
mean, it wasn’t that big of a deal at the time, except that I was
in the hospital. Everything after that felt like a dream. Even now,
just...talking about it makes me feel like I’m...floating or
something.”

At that, he smiled. “Floating? The
only time I can remember you floating is when I was so deep in --”
He laughed as she slapped him, glaring.

“I’m trying to have a heart-felt
moment with you, and you want to bring up sex?”

Talon smirked at her. “Makes you want
to do it, doesn’t it?”

“Do it...” She trailed off, glared. He
chuckled. “Asshole.”

“You like it. So, what was the guy’s
name? In the ‘dream’, he had a name, right?”

She struggled, debating on if she
should tell him or not. It was weird, different. He might not think
she was crazy right now -- actually, she couldn’t even tell if he
thought she was or not -- but he would when she told him the name.
Besides Talon, it was the most unique name she had ever come
across. How she, in her dream-like state, had thought it up, she
had no idea.

Talon nudged her, wrapping his arm
around her shoulder again. She had moved out of his grasp when
she’d slapped him, and now he was just bringing her close
again.

“I don’t really think it matters, to
be honest. It was just a dream.” Even the therapist had thought her
crazy, she thought, bemused.

He gave her an arch look, but dropped
it. “The more I learn about you, the more I feel like an asshole
for the way I treated you before.” He didn’t have to explain the
“before” to her.

Jamie tried smiling at him. “I
understood. When I was taking care of you...all of those scars on
you... You know, I have scars. I’ve gotten bruises. I’ve broken
bones. But before you, I didn’t know a human being was capable of
dealing and handling all of that pain.”

Talon became solemn, his hand dropping
to her elbow and rubbing her softly. Her stomach flipped at the
small act of affection, warmth spreading through her. “Jamie, you
know by now that I’m not human, right?”

She swallowed largely, looking up at
him. “I know. I’m trying to just ignore that. I mean, you’re
somewhat human. You have a heart, a soul. That’s all I need to
know.”

He gave her a smile. She saw the pride
in his eyes. “And Auro has neither of those things. What you did to
Lyne... that wasn’t murder. He was dead long before that, but his
body kept running, solely on revenge. For me. I don’t want you to
regret what you did, I don’t want that to be a reason that you
don’t get sleep at night.”

Jamie paled as she remembered the sort
of trance she had been in. It was blurry, what had come over her.
But it was still a shock to know that she had actually...done that.
“He was trying to hurt you.”

That was the only thing that kept her
from going hysterical over it. The whole time since after that,
she’d been trying to just ignore what she had done had made Lyne...
die. Or whatever he had done. She had saved Talon’s life, and as
she stared up at him, felt his hand on her, was immersed in his
heat, she knew she would do anything to keep him safe.

“He was going to kill me.” The
bluntness, the acceptance he gave, amazed her. To know that Chris
hated her so much he wanted to abuse her was enough to make her
panic. Talon had someone who wanted to kill him, and what did he
do? Nothing.