The Barrier Between (Collector Series # 2) (16 page)

He will leave you, Zoey. You know it is only a
matter of time. They always do.

The inner voice pushed me to my feet. Panic and the
need to pee took me to the bathroom. I grabbed a clean, folded
sheet off the table left for us by the maid and wrapped it around
me. I cracked the bathroom door open, tiptoed inside, and closed it
quietly behind me.

“Well, well, well.” Sprig’s voice banged against my
skull. I jumped and spun around to see the brown furball sitting on
the edge of the tub. “So... how are
you
this morning?” His
tiny ears wiggled as his forehead went up and down in a mocking
tease.

“Sprig,” I warned him.

“Surprised you are walking.”

I gripped my forehead. Talking and thinking felt
heavy to my brain.

“Seems the human and the Wanderer worked out their
differences after all. All night long. And quite loudly I may
add.”

“Sprig, is it at all possible you can choose this
morning not to want to talk to me?” I begged, turning myself to the
mirror. I cringed at my image. My hair was so knotted and tangled,
it looked like a purple Muppet was sitting on my head. Black
mascara ringed my eyes, but a glow colored my cheeks. A lightness
and joy lit up my aura, like a girl who had the most incredible sex
of her life and who had been so thoroughly satisfied she couldn’t
even think straight. Against my will a smile pulled my mouth.

“I saw that,
Bhean
.”

“Saw what?” I forced the smile off my face.

Sprig jumped down, scuttled across the room, and
jumped in the sink. He sat back on his legs, his head tilted. “You
like him. I mean really, really like him.”

Protecting myself was instinct. I’d always kept
people from learning my weaknesses. And my feelings toward Ryker
were the ultimate vulnerability to me. Yes. I liked Ryker...
probably more than liked. But I would not be the first to express
it. It would be too much for me to lose if he did not feel the
same. My problem was I either kept people at arm’s length or handed
them over my heart. Two people prior to Ryker had succeeded in
breaking down my walls. Two people. Ever. And both left me.

“No.” I shook my head. “It was purely sex. An itch we
both needed to scratch.”

Sprig crossed his arms. “I don’t believe you. It was
more than an itch. It always has been with you two.”

My tangled hair bounced as I continued to deny
Sprig’s words. “We were drunk.”
He will go back to Amara. You
know he will
. “It was a mistake.” It almost hurt to say those
words, but I couldn’t seem to stop them. For my own protection I
had to convince myself it was the truth. I could not fall for a
fae. No way.

Thankfully, Sprig’s attention span was worse than a
gnat’s. “So... can we have breakfast now?” He bobbed up and down on
his legs. “I’m soooo hungry. Oh, can we
please
go to Izel’s.
I
have
to have those Peruvian pancakes, with honey... but
make sure it’s not the ones with bananas on top.” His lip curled.
“Because I don’t like those. Oh! Or we can go to the churro vendor
on the street. He makes the
best
churros. I like min—”

“Sprig?” I leaned over the sink, letting my head
drop. The weight of it throbbed in my ears, along with his
incessant yammering. “Shut up, please.”

“Oh, did someone not get a good night’s sleep?” A
tiny hand patted my head. “Maybe if you went to bed before dawn. Or
didn’t keep the entire building awake with sounds only dying
animals make.”

“Get out.” I pointed at the door.

He snickered and jumped off the sink. He opened the
bathroom window. “But we are getting breakfast, right?”

“Go!” He chirped and swung out of the window. I heard
him enter the window in the bedroom.

After I dealt with my bladder, I heard movement in
the next room. Ryker was up. If only I could hide out in the
bathroom the rest of the day. I had to face him, and it was better
to see the truth in his eyes than prolong it.

I took in a shaky breath, tightened the sheet around
me, and opened the door. He stood with his back to me, his hair,
free from the braids, lay soft around his shoulders. He was
buttoning his cargo pants. His broad back was still unclothed and
bore red nail marks down it.

It was embarrassing recalling the many times he had
me clawing, begging, and moaning. It was a side of me I never
showed. Before, I wouldn’t have let a man know he could possess me
so completely. With Ryker it wouldn’t stay hidden.

The world underneath my feet was unstable, and I
hated it. He had broken past many of my walls. He knew more about
me than anyone else in the world. It was a dangerous place.

“Hey.” My voice came out fragmented and soft.

He glanced over his shoulder. My deepest fears
slammed into me, breaking in shards through my gut. His face was
hard. Cold. Distant.

“Hey.” He nodded and returned to buttoning his
pants.

My legs shifted nervously. Oh damn, we ruined it. We
finally had some sort of alliance, a partnership, and in one
drunken night we destroyed everything.

“I’ll go use the community shower down the hall. You
can have this one,” he said, his voice void of emotion. He walked
over to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. I stood in the
bathroom doorway, watching him. His eyes never lifted as he grabbed
some fresh clothes.

“Okay. Thanks,” I muttered.

He nodded, grabbed a towel off the table, and left
the room. The instant he closed the door, liquid prickled under my
lids.

“Think you two need a time-out again.” Sprig munched
on some dried mango chips he’d left on the TV.

I bit so hard into my lip, the metallic taste of
blood coated my tongue. I yanked open the middle drawer and grabbed
some clothes.

“Breakfast?” Sprig yelled out as I slammed the
bathroom door, rattling the room. I fell back against the door, my
hand cupped over my mouth. I would not cry. “So... is that a
maybe?” Sprig called.

My response was to bang my head into the
door—repeatedly.

Dressed and clean, the three of us headed for
Izel’s. We’d been there a few times since the first morning. It was
family owned and some of the best food I ever had. My hangover was
dying for nutrients, but my stomach coiled with hurt and
rejection.

Ryker and I didn’t speak or look at each other unless
it was necessary. The coldness between us was obvious with the two
of us sitting there and not talking.

The people here were a lot more open to primates
hanging around, but they still didn’t like them sitting at a table.
The staff would shoo the monkeys away, deeming them a nuisance to
the patrons. Sprig sat in my bag, a plastic baby bib around his
neck. The way he ate, we needed hazmat suits, but this was all we
had.

“If you ‘accidently’ bite me again, I will bite back
this time,” I threatened him. He had become a little overzealous in
eating the last time we had come here.

“And she will too.” Ryker sipped at his orange
juice.

A blush colored my cheeks. In anger I had bitten him
when we first met. It wasn’t why I turned red. Teeth marks, my
teeth marks, were currently bruised along his neck and shoulder
reminding me of the previous night. And morning. Even with hurt
anchoring me down, the need to crawl over the table and straddle
him in the middle of the restaurant gripped me so powerfully I had
to dig my nails into my palms to stop myself. He had awakened
something in me that did not want to be suppressed any longer. It
wanted more.

I swallowed and focused on Sprig. My back was to the
customers, so I could feed Sprig easier. Ryker liked being the one
to face the door.

“Give me the damn pancake.” Sprig strangled the edges
of my bag.

“When they get here.” I put my finger to my lips.

Izel was the woman who originally opened the diner,
but she had passed away several years before. The daughter, Melosa,
now cooked and ran the place along with her three daughters, two
sons, and husband. She was in her late fifties, with short, dark
hair, and big brown eyes. She ran the restaurant like every guest
was sitting at her own dining room table. She took pride in every
dish and would probably be insulted if we didn’t finish everything
on our plates. We always did. I think it was the reason she took an
instant liking to us. She welcomed our monstrous appetites and
appreciation of her food. It was enough for her to look past her
automatic suspicion of newcomers and to treat us like locals.

Melosa rounded the corner; our plates lined up her
arms. The aroma of hot crepes and butter filled my nose. Sprig
chirped and rattled my bag back and forth in excitement. I settled
my hand on his head.

She smiled down at him and set my plate in front of
me. She had caught me feeding him the second time we had eaten
here. She ignored the fact I had a monkey as long as I kept him in
my bag and out of sight of tourists and other patrons. I knew we
were walking a precarious line. The moment Sprig got overexcited
and spoke without thinking, it would be over. She, along with Tulio
the bartender, would come after us with pitchforks.

She placed Ryker’s dishes in front of him, everything
divided into separate small plates. I don’t know when she learned
of his quirk. It probably was one of the first times when either
she saw me switch with him or saw him push his food into different
corners so they wouldn’t touch.

Melosa was the first human woman, aside from me,
Ryker genuinely smiled at. She winked at him every time she went
by. When she learned we weren’t “together,” she paraded all three
of her daughters over to him. She would probably try her sons
next.

Today, she stopped, peering at us. Her gaze darted
back and forth between us, taking in my beard-burned face and the
bites on his neck.

A flood of Spanish rolled off her tongue in a giddy
cadence, too fast for me to pick it up. My Spanish was good, but I
still couldn’t understand most of what she said. She gave my hand a
squeeze, winked at Ryker, and took off for the kitchen.

“Give me, give me, give mmmmeeeeee.” Sprig grabbed
for the plate.

I tore off a piece of soft warm dough. Butter and
honey dripped off the pancake onto my hand. My mouth watered. Sprig
nipped at my finger then chomped down on the piece. He emitted a
blissful sigh.

“What did she say?” I slanted my head toward Melosa’s
fleeting frame.

Ryker cut into his stack. He liked his only with
butter.

“She gave us an old Peruvian blessing, wishing us
love and a full house.” He kept his attention on his breakfast.

“Oh.” I picked up my fork.

Everything was awkward now. The sex had been
unbelievable, but if it meant we lost our friendship, I’d lose him.
I couldn’t say it had been worth it.

We ate in silence, my attention mostly on getting
dough into Sprig’s mouth fast enough. In the middle of one of his
bites, his head fell back and his mouth opened as he began to
breathe deeply. Out like a light.

I took the unchewed food from him and wiped the
sticky honey and butter off his hands and mouth before placing him
at the bottom of my bag.

“You act like a mother.” Ryker’s voice jolted me.

“What?”

Ryker tilted his head toward the bundle in my bag.
“Were you like this with your sister?”

The chair scraped the tile as I leaned back into it.
“Yeah. Joanna wasn’t going to take care of her. It was up to me. At
thirteen I was Lexie’s mother and sister.”

“Taking care of people... it comes naturally to you.”
It was a statement.

“I did what I needed to survive. For both Lexie and
me.” I cleared my throat. “And I still failed.”

“You didn’t fail.”

“My sister’s dead. You don’t call that a
failure?”

“Like my sister?” He crossed his arms, inclining
back.

“No. It’s not what I meant.”

“You can take the blame for your sister, but I can’t
for mine?”

Losing our sisters in eerily similar situations only
linked us together even more. There were few people who could
really understand what it felt like to watch your house burn with
someone you love inside it and not be able to save them. Self-blame
was another thing we shared. I could see how it wasn’t his fault,
but with myself, I couldn’t see it as clearly. We actually had much
in common, and I didn’t want to lose him. If it meant putting my
pride aside, I would have to deal.

I sat up, about to say something. Ryker halted the
words in my throat. His body was rigid and his eyes were on
something behind me.

Oh no