Wake of Darkness (27 page)

Time passed as everyone got settled
in. They each explored the house, unpacked, but predictably Sophie soon found
herself at Alexander's door.

 “Enter,” he replied to her knock.

She opened the door and found him
sorting through the books and papers he had brought along with him from Texas. He
glanced up and smiled at her.

“May I help you?” he asked with a
gleam in his eye. He turned back to the desk in the corner.

She slowly approached him and gently
slid herself between the piece of furniture and his body. She sat on the desk
and grasped his shirt, slightly rumpled from their trip. She pulled him closer.
He set the books in his hands down on the desk and grasped her by the waist,
pulling her forward.

“I don’t know,” she replied
playfully, her face inches from his, “maybe you can.”

She pulled him closer and kissed
him, feeling the desire rise in her core as her heart accelerated. It was
something she’d wanted to do in the airport, when he called every woman they’d
encountered “ma’am;” when he held the door open for her; when they had been
inches from one another on the plane, when he nearly drove her crazy in the car,
the electricity between them impossible to ignore.

He kissed her neck as she ran her
fingers through his hair and sighed.

“Ahem,” Jim interrupted.

“Ah!” She exclaimed, dropping her
hands in frustration. “Damn it.”

Alexander chuckled softly in her
ear, sending more chills down her spine, and pulled her still closer.

Jim snickered. “Get a room,” he
said.

“Hello!” Sophie replied, gesturing
to the room they were in.

“You
know
what I mean,” Jim
replied.

“What can we do for you, Jim?” Alexander
asked with a sarcastic smile, still refusing to remove himself from between her
legs.

Jim rolled his eyes. “I need the key
to the garage.”

“The garage?” Sophie asked
incredulously, looking to Alexander for an explanation.

“Do you remember your thought on
the way in about our ‘preoccupation’ with speed?” Alexander asked her
enigmatically.

“Yeah…?”

He took her hand and smiled as he
pulled her down from the desktop and into his arms. “Come with me.”

They were there before she knew
what had happened. She was used to jumping, but not when he suddenly grabbed
her hand without warning and she instantaneously found herself in a new place. It
would take some getting used to. Jim appeared almost immediately after them.

“You could warn me before you do
that next time,” Jim grumbled.

“Ha!” Sophie exclaimed
sarcastically.

Alexander turned his head. He
looked over his shoulder replied, “Yes, but tell me: where is the fun in that?”

Jim rolled his eyes.

Sophie looked around and suddenly
realized that they were in the garage, a cavernous building with gleaming
vehicles lined side-by-side along its length. It had obviously been added onto
the back of the house much later.

Jim clapped his hands and rubbed
his palms against one another. “You got it!” was all he said before lumbering
over to a huge red Hummer H2 truck.

“It is
literally
bulletproofed,” Alexander said.

Jim climbed into the cab. Sophie
chuckled in disbelief. Alexander turned to her to explain.

“Our enemies are far more real
here; bulletproofing makes sense.” Then he shrugged. “And he drives like a
madman.”  

Sophie released a mirthful laugh,
and turned to look around as her eyes rested on a shining gun metal silver
sedan.
That has to be yours
, she thought.

“It is,” Alexander replied softly,
smiling at her.

It was sleek, undoubtedly expensive,
and hinted at excessive horsepower. He smiled at her as Jim let out a long,
slow whistle.

Sophie turned and looked at Jim
with one eyebrow raised.

“That’s a
nice
car,” he
said, admiringly, walking over to stroke the hood gently.

Sophie grinned and shook her head.
Men
and their cars, I’ll never understand
.

“It’s a
customized
Audi A8!
What
is there to understand?” Jim asked.

She shook her head and laughed
quietly at her new big brother. ‘Nice’ was an understatement. Of course she
knew what it was.

“How?” Jim asked quickly.

Her smile disappeared. “Uh…” she
stammered, caught off guard, “um…a…foster brother was into cars,” she answered
awkwardly.

She swiftly looked away. She tried
never to think about Danny, and forced her thoughts away from her memories of
him entirely, though his face stubbornly broke through the barriers she
defensively threw up in her mind.

Alexander watched her, his eyebrows
furrowed in worry; he saw the pain behind the memory that flashed in her brain.
The heat of shame, embarrassment, and fear coursed through his mind as they
swam through her veins, but he didn’t push the issue.

She blinked quickly.
Now’s not
the time.

Alexander cleared his throat. “Sophie,
here is yours,” he said, gesturing to another car and changing the subject all
at once. “I believe you know how to drive a standard transmission?”

“Are you kidding me? I love driving
stick,” she whispered, but this was too much. She wasn’t expecting to turn
around and find a midnight blue, tinted windowed Mercedes convertible staring
back at her.

“You won’t be able to walk
everywhere any longer. You need some wheels under you.”

“I can’t accept this,” she replied
and then grimaced through a smile. “But…argh! I
want
to! It’s
so
pretty!” She crooned, lovingly stroked the hood.

“Of course you can accept it,” he
said. “It’s a gift. I thought you would like it.”

“Like it?” She replied, “It’s
just…so…
wow!
Thank you.”

He smiled and caught her as she
propelled herself into his arms, hugging him tightly around the neck. He
laughed in his sensual way, right beside her ear, making the hair on the back
of her neck stand on end.

"It is a selfish gift,"
he admitted. "Our family is getting large enough to necessitate more
transportation. We can’t all fit into one car and this makes it easier."

She pulled back and looked deeply
into his eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered. "It's not selfish at all."

Laney suddenly popped into the
garage, and feeding off of the excitability in the room, she began bouncing up
and down.

“Wow!” Laney exclaimed. “Is that
yours, Sophie?”

“Apparently,” she replied still a
little shocked, as Alexander dropped the keys into her hand.

“Nice wheels, Jim,” Laney continued
and bounded over to inspect his new ride. “Where’s mine?”

Jim chuckled. “You can borrow mine
until you get to pick something out.”

She clapped her hands gleefully.

Zoey strode into the room
gracefully. Alexander nodded at her in greeting.

“Thanks for arranging it,” Zoey
said quietly and sauntered over to a Ducati motorcycle that looked like it was
made of quicksilver. Sophie watched the graceful, old-fashioned redhead
incredulously, but then figured to each her own.

Alexander looked down at Sophie and
smile. “It is
a bit faster
, perhaps, than what you are used to,” he
warned, only half-seriously.

She laughed. Well, she’d been
traveling on foot of late, so yeah, this was sure to be something quite
different…

“Let's take it for a test
drive," she replied, walking over to the driver’s side and sliding inside.

“We will be back after awhile. Lock
up for us, Jim, if you please,” he said before climbing into the passenger
side, ignoring Jim’s smirk.

He pointed to a button on the
console before her. Pressing it, the garage door lifted suddenly.

“Oh,” she gasped, “cool.”

She pushed the clutch in, and
pressing on the gas; the car lunged forward.

“Easy, tiger,” Alexander said with
a laugh behind his words.

“Sorry,” she replied. “It’s been a
while since I’ve handled a clutch.”

It all came back to her quickly
enough, and they were soon speeding through the streets of New Orleans, heading
for the freeway as she followed his directions. The top was down and the wind
was blowing her hair out behind her. She felt like Grace Kelly as she drove
along. Shifting smoothly between gears, she felt the engine surge well beyond
the speed limit. It didn’t take long before she heard the sounds of sirens
behind her.

Oh, hell,
she thought.

Alexander chuckled as she gently
brought the car to a stop on the right shoulder of the freeway. She watched in
the rearview mirror as the police car parked behind her.

Get out of it
, Alexander
thought quickly, touching her hand that rested on the steering wheel.

Huh?

The ticket: Get out of it
,
he repeated with a devilish smile.

Money and morals, huh?
She
thought sarcastically. He grinned.

“Miss? License, registration, and
insurance,” he officer requested without looking at her.

Here goes nothing.
“Here you
are, officer,” she replied, handing him the paperwork and pulling her
sunglasses off of her face, leveling her eyes at him in an attempt to look
alluring. She bit her bottom lip coyly.

“Uh…um,” he stammered, having
locked eyes with her. “Do, uh…um…do you know how fa…fast you were going?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she replied in her
best coy voice, “I just wasn’t paying any attention.” She shamelessly gripped
the stick shift as Alexander repressed a chuckle. “I guess I’m just not used to
the power,” she added innocently. “It’s brand new,” she shrugged innocently. “My
first time out.”

She smiled at his unspoken response
and Alexander pretended not to notice.
Don't overdo it,
he thought.

“Uh…” the officer stuttered,
handing her paperwork back to her slowly, “um…yeah…uh, just…uh…watch it next
time, okay miss?”

“Of course officer,” she replied.
I’m
actually getting away with this?
 “I’m
so
sorry.” Another smile.

He turned abruptly to walk back to
his cruiser and nearly stumbled as he tried to look at her over his shoulder
without her noticing. Sophie put her sunglasses back on before looking over at
Alexander.

“I told you,” he said smugly.

“You did,” she agreed with a shrug.
She started the engine and pulled gingerly away from the cruiser, hoping not to
attract more of the officer’s attention. She still didn’t know how it’d worked,
but it had.

Alexander laughed at her. “There
are several reasons why that worked, the two most important being that you are
gorgeous and you’re psychic. You can convince anyone—well,
humans
—of anything.
Aside from his conscious thoughts—which you used to your advantage quite well
if I may say so—you are also aware of his subconscious thoughts even if you
were not actively listening to them,” he answered.

“You think I’m gorgeous?” She asked
coyly.

He smiled in answer as she took the
first exit ramp, heading back home.

"You also have a lot to
learn," he reminded her.

She certainly couldn't argue with
that.

*

 The sun began to sink below the
horizon. The breeze started to stir the leaves as the air cooled for the night.
Sophie was lost in her thoughts, but she was still aware enough of her
surroundings to tell when he walked in the room.

“I have a question for you—if you
don’t mind.”

She nodded.

He hesitated, before drawing in a
breath. “The young man you thought about in the garage, who is he? Today was
not the first time I’ve seen him in your thoughts.”

She sighed and felt her heart drop.
She’d known she wouldn’t be able to dodge this question for long, not with the
intimacy she shared with him which guaranteed their synced minds…She sank into
one of the chairs in the living room. He followed her lead and crouched down in
front of her, holding her gaze even as she looked down, trying to avoid it. He
watched her with pleading eyes.

She didn’t speak and she didn’t
tell him out loud; she simply let herself remember. It was easier, somehow,
than putting it all into words. She knew he’d get the full story that way,
without any editing.

The face flashed into her head
again; it wasn’t a menacing face. Danny was kind of baby-faced…which was a
large part of his danger. You didn’t know
not
to trust him, and she’d
only been thirteen or so—just a couple of years younger than Laney.

He had dark hair on top of his
sweet looking face, but if the second you looked into his eyes you’d know that he
couldn’t be trusted; there was a coldness there that seemed out of place with
the rest of his face, as if he lacked feelings, as if he lacked a soul.