The Lost Soul Trilogy (Primani Book 5) (73 page)

I felt the same crushing sense of loss, but he was holding it back and closing his armor against it. His physical body needed rest and food. His brain needed to shut down and process everything within the safety of sleep. I wasn’t sure how long he could use his Primani
saol
to fuel himself without food and rest. At some point, the effort would be too much and he’d probably collapse. If that happened, well, I don’t know how I would help him.

“Sean, I--”

“Mica, don’t,” his voice was strained and he rubbed his eyes, “just don’t.”

Taking his hand, with a sense of déjà vu, I asked him to show me the bedrooms and a shower. We headed up the short flight of stairs and he opened one of the four wooden doors for me. Inside was a girly bedroom with a queen-sized bed covered with a fluffy white comforter. The walls were painted lavender and one was papered with a mural of a lavender field. It was sweet. Two large windows and a tiny balcony opened up to a view of the flower-covered plain.

“Where’s your room?”

He pointed to the room farthest away from mine and I frowned. That’s not close enough. “Can’t you sleep in this one?” I pointed to the one next to mine. “I don’t want to be so alone. I have nightmares.”

His attention snapped back and he scrutinized me with suspicion. “Nightmares? What nightmares?”

Letting the silence stretch, I fiddled with my locket. Finally, I said, “How can you ask that? Didn’t you hear anything that Jordan said? I was trapped in that house for hours listening to a thousand demons screaming, trying to get inside. Pounding and scratching and screaming…” My voice drifted off and I shuddered at the memory. “When they finally broke the protection, they ripped the house into pieces trying to get to me. They tore the windows apart, the doors into splinters…I was about to shove
your
knife into my heart when Raphael chased them off. One more second and I would’ve been dead either way. And then the hospital…” I bit my lip as I remembered the demons and the loss that they caused. My heart still hadn’t moved on even if my brain was busy.

Frozen in place, he stared at me, eyes dark and emotionless. A tiny flame flickered in their depths. Finally, I turned and walked away.

“Sean! Wake up! You’re dreaming!” I reached out to shake him but hesitated.

What if he was too far gone to recognize me? He could hurt me without even knowing it happened. Instead, I let my hand linger just next to him and waited. Gentle heat radiated from his skin and I craved the comfort of it. It was late now and I’d been tossing and turning with bad dreams of my own. A sound had startled me awake a few minutes ago and I’d sat straight up in my bed, listening and alert. The sound came again and my heart contracted in sympathy. The cry of distress was barely audible but it was there. I’d sat and wondered what to do while he flailed in the grip of his nightmare. After endless minutes, I’d slipped into his room and tried to wake him.

The moonlight was weak and hardly penetrated the darkness. Sean lay sprawled on his stomach with one arm flung out in front of him. The sheet was wrapped around his waist in a tangle of white. I knew without looking that he was naked under it. The taut muscles of his back shimmered faintly against the shadows, and I wanted badly to reach out and touch him, to pull him out of the dream. He groaned and shifted his body, tensing for a fight. His fist clenched once, twice, and then opened into a claw that raked the bed as if desperate to hold on to something. Suddenly his eyes flew open and stared without seeing me. He gasped and said just one word. Then he abruptly moaned and flung out the clawed hand. It struck me on my leg and didn’t shock me, so I took that as an invitation and gingerly perched on the edge of the bed and laid my hand on his arm to wake him. Instead of waking up, he curled his fingers around mine and pulled me down to him. Completely asleep, he curled around my back and rested his face against my hair. His breathing softened and he found peace again.

I, on the other hand, was not at peace. It was the middle of the night and somehow I had ended up in bed with Sean…how on earth was I going to explain this in this morning? Lying stiff as a board, I agonized over getting up. I finally tried to slip away. He responded by pulling me closer and mumbling something against my hair. His arm was draped over my waist, his hand lying upturned in supplication in front of me. His beautiful fingers were curled into a claw again. I wrapped my hand around his and they relaxed into softness. Oh, Sean…what’s going to happen to you? Against my better judgment, I relaxed against him and tried not to picture the frown on Killian’s face. He would
not
like this…

“What the hell?” Sean’s startled exclamation woke me out of a fitful sleep as the sun slanted into the curtains.

I jumped up and looked around for intruders, my hand automatically reaching for a weapon. Finding neither, I stood blinking like an owl in my underwear.

“What are you doing in my bed?” we both demanded at the same time.

Narrowing his eyes at me, he peered underneath the sheet and eyeballed my half-naked body with confusion on his face. Uncomfortably aware of how much skin was showing, I yanked the abandoned quilt around me and stared back at him.

I swallowed and said lamely, “You had a bad dream. I, uh, wanted to help.”

He raised an eyebrow and his eyes turned that shade of midnight that told me exactly which head he was thinking with. The sheet twitched in invitation. “If you keep starin’ at me like that, darlin’, I’m going to pull you back under here and let you comfort me until noon.”

Yikes! Beating a hasty retreat, I practically sprinted to my own room and locked the door. Feeling like I just dodged a bullet, I closed my eyes with relief. Well,
that
could’ve been worse. I took a shower and tiptoed back to my room lest he catch me in my towel. Dashing into my room, I slammed the door shut behind me and leaned against it with my heart in my ears.

“Hiding, Princess?”

My eyes flew open. “Killian! Oh, my God, it’s you!” I threw myself against him and kissed him like he was water in a desert.

He held me close and smiled against my mouth. “Of course it’s me. I told you I’d find you. Are you okay?”

“Mostly…sort of…okay, not really. But I’m better now.”

Taking advantage of my lack of clothes, he tugged on the towel and let it settle around my feet. With supernatural thoroughness, he ran his hands over every inch of my skin, taking inventory of my bruises. His calloused fingers were magical even without his powers and I was sinking into oblivion when he stopped touching me and rested his fingers lightly against my arm. He asked, “Who did this?”

“Hmm?”

“Seriously, babe. Where did you get these bruises? They’re fingerprints.”

I blinked and sighed. So much for comforting me…

Chuckling in spite of his worry, he said, “Oh, don’t worry, there’s time for that.” His eyes returned to my arm and he added, “But, first things first.”

He was looking at my left arm. I said, “Those are from Sean, and the others are from you.” I had an angry-looking bruise on my right arm from where he’d grabbed me in panic just before he’d vanished from the tunnels.

He immediately looked contrite so I rushed to add, “It’s not your fault! It happened in the tunnels. It doesn’t hurt; it just looks ugly.”

I traced his jaw with my fingertip and nibbled on his frowning mouth until he cracked a tiny smile. I grinned in satisfaction as my finger left a tiny trail of light across his skin. Smiling into my eyes, he reached out and stroked my cheek with the back of his hand. The rune brought a rush of heat to my skin, and my twin glowed cheerily at the contact. The twin runes connected us in ways that even Killian hadn’t expected. His blood flowed through my body like it did his own. The more I used my new powers, the more connected I felt to him. Being apart left me feeling antsy and incomplete. Standing at his side, touching him, swamped me with a strange sense of déjà vu, of fulfilled destiny, of ancient history.

“Come here, love. Let me take away your pain,” he ordered in that soft sexy voice of his.

Leaning his forehead against mine, he gathered me against him and held me in the silence of the morning. We stood together just breathing until the grief and pain drifted away. My heart was lighter and my mind clearer. He had that effect on me. One of my dubiously helpful powers was the ability to sense others’ emotions, and Killian’s mind was more open to me than most. My newly-cleared mind allowed me to focus on him. His emotions swirled around like a snowstorm. He was worried for the people he loved. I squeezed him harder against me and tried to absorb some of his strain. He had many faces…protector, lover, Primani. His unique powers made him too strong to really need love or comfort, but he was willing to accept it from me as a bonus in his lonely life. Until I came along, he’d existed quite nicely without affection or tenderness. His status as a 3,000-year old warrior-priest-angel allowed him to rise above silly little human notions like romantic love. Even knowing that, I was still compelled to take away his pain.

Scooping me into his arms, he wagged his head, “Do you ever stop thinking? You’re making me dizzy.”

Flushing, I said, “Sorry, I forget you can read my mind. It must be so boring for you.”

Plopping me on the mattress, he nibbled on my neck and mumbled, “Shh, I’m still comforting you.”

Following a clink of weapons, his clothes hit the floor and he sprawled out in all of his sexy, naked, glory. His big body reclined next to me and I shook my head in amazement. I slowly ran my hands over the hard ridges of his abs. The muscles quivered at my touch as I ran my fingertip around his belly button. It was a perfect innie with a tiny freckle centered underneath it. Intrigued, I pressed my nail into the freckle, just to watch it fade and reappear. He twitched and trapped my hand with one of his big paws. He was entirely too perfect; and he was all mine. Suddenly feeling greedy, I slid my hand lower and arched against him like a cat. His reaction was immediate. Afterwards, I was so comfortable I might’ve been dead.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” I stretched and tucked my chin into the crook of his arm.

Yawning, he said, “Yes, I have to go. I have a lead on Jordan and I need to be in Lucerne today. I needed to see you though. I wanted to be sure you were okay.”

Curling into his side, I nodded against his chest. “I think I am, but I feel weaker than I did before. It’s like I’m a little shaky inside and my skin feels…thin.”

Frowning slightly, he tucked me against him and thought for a minute. “Working with lightning is hard core. It’s tough to control and can really mess you up if you don’t do it right.” He smiled at me then, a cheeky, mischievous grin that transformed his entire face. “You were amazing, you know that, right? Other than me, there isn’t anyone else alive today who can control lightning. You’re bad ass, babe.”

Flabbergasted, I sat up, turning pink at the unexpected compliment. “Really? I had no idea. So it’s true then, we…” I didn’t need to finish my thought. He’d know what I meant.

“Yes, we really did control it. It took both of us to do it. I couldn’t have done it without you on that big a scale. Now you see why I needed to check on you? I wanted to be sure you weren’t lying in a puddle of drool with a brain like a zucchini.” He ran a slow hand over my hip and leaned down to kiss me again. His calloused palm drifted over my breast to rest on my heart. The tip of his tongue teased my mouth and he said, “I can feel your heart beating for me, slow and steady. Is that how you want me now?”

“Killian?”

“Hmm?” His breath came evenly across the top of my head as we lay sprawled on the bed.

“What’s happening with Sean? I’m not sure how to reach him. He won’t talk to me.”

Rolling smoothly to his feet, Killian slipped on his clothes and went to stand near the window. His scowl deepened the tiny creases between his eyes, making him seem older and tired. Without turning, he said regretfully, “He’s not going to talk to you. You know that. He’s too proud and it’s not his way. You’re going to have to be patient and look for an opening.”

“But what’s going on with him? I totally get that he’s trying to deal with what happened to Dec.” My voice hitched and I coughed to cover the rush of emotion. “But what are you so worried about?”

“Come here with me and I’ll tell you what I think. Maybe you’ll have another opinion. If you do, I’ll be glad to hear it. This is one time I wish I was wrong.” He patted the window seat and smiled sadly. I sat cross-legged in front of him and linked my fingers loosely in his.

His eyes clouded with memory while he gathered his thoughts. Finally, he said, “I think you already know how strongly connected our emotions are to our powers. You’ve seen that in your own powers. It’s rarely a problem for Primani though. We don’t normally feel extreme swings of negative emotions like rage, fear, or even sadness.” He shrugged and added, “It’s not that we can’t; we just don’t. It isn’t usually necessary. We don’t get emotionally involved with our charges and we rarely lose other Primani. James and Jordan are anomalies. Primani don’t fall but once in a thousand years.”

“So, if you don’t feel too much, you never have to feel the pain of someone’s death?”

“Exactly. Most of us haven’t lost someone we care about for thousands of years. You know we have feelings, but we’re warriors before anything else. If we have to choose between our mission and our personal feelings, we’ll choose the mission. It’s how we’re made.” He squeezed my fingers and I took the hint.