Wrath: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 2 (5 page)

He stared and me and then dropped his head and snorted, his laughter brief but superficially sincere. “No, I don’t suppose you can.”

“And just because she looked like me doesn’t mean I was the intended victim. I mean, seriously, who wants me dead?” I was massaging my throat when he lifted his head.

“You aren’t serious?” He stared at me in open disbelief. “Great gods above, you are. Madeleine, there is a list of people who likely want to see you dead, some of whom I’m quite sure would see to it themselves given half the chance.”

My hand froze at my throat. “Who?” My voice drifted out on a single note.

“First, I’d have to assume Tarrek’s parents are at the front of the line. Their motives would be understandable but royalty doesn’t carry out their own dirty work. Remaining members of the fae, royalty or not, see you as a seductress and murderer and could come for you in any form at any time. Any of Tarrek’s remaining lovers, particularly the vampire Imeena, would gladly see you taken out, just as Gretta tried to do, for revenge. Females of the blue weyr resent you—hell, any of the female dragons of
any
weyr resent you—for taking the Glaaca out of the dating pool. They seem to believe that with you out of the way they stand a chance with Bahlin. Smaller sub-groups believe you’re in league with the larger groups in plotting their demise because you’ve already sided with the dragons. The Atlanteans will be interested in your preservation until Bahlin’s godmother Sarenia finds out you’ve broken his heart, then your survival will be of less interest to them. I think the only group you’re safe from is the witches and wizards, but many of them are employed by the other groups. So while they may not want you dead personally—yet—they may be paid to carry out your execution.” He stood and shoved his hands in his pockets, looking at the wall over my shoulder instead of facing me directly. “Are you really so naïve?”

I must have turned green because he stepped toward the bed and I cringed, gasping at the pain it brought in my stomach and chest. He came forward more slowly, laid a hand on my forehead, and the nausea passed even though the pain stayed. Oh, and the terror. It
definitely
stayed.

“You really are green, aren’t you? And in more ways than just your complexion,” he teased.

I flipped him off and rolled onto my side, panting. “Either kill me or get the hell away from me, Hellion.” I hurt so badly that, at that very moment, I think I favored death as the more humane option.

“You’re going to need Bahlin’s help to survive this political shitstorm and come out alive,” Hellion murmured. “I suppose I can be of some assistance—”

I interrupted him without apology “Why bother? If my death is what you were really after, seems you can simply hang out and wait for one of the other groups to step forward and swing the blade.”

“Because… Well, because I’m apparently the third part of the prophecy, Madeleine.”

“Just Maddy, Hellion. You know I prefer it, so cut it out.”

“I wish I’d never unblocked your vocal cords.” He began pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed. “We’re destined to experience an epic love story, Maddy.” He emphasized my name and looked over at me, quirking a brow. I nodded in acknowledgment and he went on. “Odin has spoken, and I won’t defy the head of my pantheon, so I must believe it’s true. I may not like it, but destiny is destiny. Besides, I know you felt what I felt when we kissed.” He stopped and turned toward me, and he smiled, truly smiled, for the first time. It was like the scary Hellion melted away and was replaced by a Greek sun god. He was bright and warm, and all I could do was stare. The removal of the worry lines, the softening of the black of his eyes and the emphasis of the sooty lashes surrounding them, the shape of his lips, the square of his jaw—it all worked together, and he was suddenly physically remarkable. I reached out to him, compelled to trace these inexplicable changes, and he came willingly to my hand. I looked on him in wonder and he laughed, a rich-bodied sound that made me smile in response. He leaned in to me and kissed me gently. My heart tripped painfully in my chest.

He sat back, the small smile still playing at his lips. “It hasn’t ever been like that for me, not even with Gretta. It’s never felt so, well, so perfect.”

“Not knowing exactly what you felt, I can’t answer that. I
will
tell you I’ve always been cautious by nature, and Bahlin’s dumping me has only made me more so. The word of a god just pisses me off as a reason, so don’t use it.” I laid my hand on his heart; he automatically mirrored the gesture. Neither organ was behaving rationally but instead the two were pounding out similar staccato rhythms. He smiled down at me and I continued. “I also won’t lie to you and say I felt, or feel, nothing. I feel something very intense and it scares me. My very short, very volatile engagement only ended hours ago, and here you want to talk about long-term commitment, not because you love me but because someone told you to. It doesn’t fly for me. I’m bound to Bahlin as a detective’s partner for twelve years. That’s a long time to be stuck with someone who hates you, so I need to sort this out. I won’t get involved with someone who dislikes me equally as much and commit my life, however long—or short—it may be, to him because his god says it’s supposed to be so.” I dropped my hand and sat back.

“I understand, Madeleine.” Hellion bent his face to mine and kissed me gently, leaning into me and overwhelming my senses all over again.

I sighed into his mouth and settled into his embrace. He hugged me and I grunted a little.

“I’m so selfish sometimes. I can heal most of this. Lie down on the bed,” he said, stripping off his shirt so he was wearing only the black slacks and boots.

Whoa, baby.

The man was built beautifully when he was in his shirt, but out of it? He was a visual orgasm. More muscular than Bahlin, he wasn’t muscle-bound but rather seriously ripped. There wasn’t a stray hair anywhere on his chest and only the thinnest stripe from his bellybutton running into his trousers.

He caught me looking and I blushed. He didn’t laugh but came over to my side of the bed and knelt on the floor beside me. Taking my hand, he kissed each knuckle “May this body please you in any way you see fit to use it, Madeleine Niteclif, be it for sword arm, shield arm, lance, magic, or love.” He looked stunned at his own words. He scrubbed his hands over his face and muttered an unintelligible oath before getting back to business.

I pushed myself to sitting, grimacing with the movement and ignoring the unexpected oath of devotion. “What are you going to do, Hellion? Bahlin’s tried, and the fae healer did a little, but nothing’s finished the process.”

“Oh, I’ll do a bit of this and a bit of that.” He cracked his knuckles and eased me back onto the bed so I was lying flat. He lifted my shirt up so my stomach was bared. He pulled a small dirk from his boot top and, without pausing, sliced his palm open. I gasped. “Shh, you’ll distract me.” He took the knife and laid it across my stomach so it pointed north to south, then he began to drip blood around the knife. He scrubbed the wound to keep it open and, when he had enough blood gathered, he began to trace runes onto my skin, using the blood as paint. The patterns were impossible to discern. The one thing I could say with certainty was that they were interconnected. He got to the last rune at due north, and he said, “This is it, Madeleine. Do you want me to take your voice? This is going to hurt, and I can’t have you scream.”

I nodded, and he did the same thing as earlier, leaving me with a scratchy throat. He finished the last line in the rune, and my stomach lit up, the runes blazing gold and red. Black smoke seeped from around the knife and seemed to come from my skin. I screamed but it was nothing more than a hiss of air. The sheer pain was ripped straight from my gut. I cried and I thrashed, but Hellion held me immobile, pressing down on the hilt of the knife with one hand and laying his other forearm across my shoulders. He ended up nicking me, and when my blood joined his, the runes burned even more intensely for an interminable second, and then it was over.

I lay there panting, fighting nausea. It hadn’t taken more than a literal minute though it felt as if it had passed on a time-lapse camera, each frame sliding by at a third its normal rate.

Hellion laid his hand over my forehead, and again the nausea faded. He said, “Stay here.” I nodded, and he murmured the releasing spell for my voice. He went to the sink and grabbed a washcloth, wet it and came back to clean my stomach off.

“What
was
that?” I panted.

“It’s a rather complex, arcane piece of magic that has been all but forgotten. It’s used for healing when one is dying and for, ah, well, death itself. Different order for the runes and a few different words, and you’d be pushing daisies before you knew what had happened.”

“What do you mean dying? I wasn’t that bad.”

“Days more and you would have been.”

I sat up and realized I wasn’t sore. I looked inside my T-shirt, and all the bruising was gone. I scrambled off the bed and Hellion let me go. I raced to the bathroom and shut the door. Lifting my T-shirt, I twisted in front of the mirror: the bruising over my kidneys was gone. I looked closely at the area over my heart where Tarrek’s curse had taken me, and the black blistering was gone. I felt really good. I walked quickly back into the bedroom. I stopped across from Hellion and smiled a true smile, and he gave one in return.

“Better?”

I nodded. Then my smile faltered. “I have to go back to Bahlin, Hellion. It’s not a choice for me right now. You understand that, right?”

“I do and I don’t.” He moved farther onto the bed, propping himself up on the pillows and watching me. “But I do believe it’s for the best, at least until we sort out how you and I are going to proceed.” He let his head list to one side, and his eyes closed gently before he asked, “My god has deemed us a mated pair and all but ordained it. I must ask, do you think you could love me, Madeleine? Or spend your life with me?”

Why do the supes always go straight for the kill shot?
I wondered. “I don’t know, Hellion. There’s something between us, and it’s only the second time in my life I’ve felt this type of connection, and the first didn’t end so well. I want to be careful, okay?” I took the chair he’d vacated earlier and watched him a bit warily. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me at this point, but I also knew he had the potential for a wicked temper and the means to back it up.

He shifted again, settling the covers around his hips. Without his shirt, he looked like a model for the cover of a bodice-ripping romance. I was staring at his torso again when he asked, “Is what you feel for me the same as what you felt for Bahlin?”

I thought about it. “No. And I don’t like that. I’m not like most women, Hellion. Emotions scare the ever-loving hell out of me.”

“Why?”

“I’ve never had luck in relationships.” I struggled to find the words to adequately explain and finally just gave up, shrugging. I would have to use what I had, adequate or not. “I’m just not that woman, the one who dreams of the fairytale ending, or the one who runs off with a man because he professes to love her, or even the one who generally accepts happily ever after.” I thought back to the wish at the stones, and my bitter thoughts about love being an add-on to life. “I’m not your storybook heroine, Hellion, so how can I just accept a storybook life?” I stood and rolled my head around on my neck. Man, I was tense.

He threw the covers back and stood, a small smile playing across his face. He shoved his hands in his pants pockets, the muscles on his stomach bunching. “I’m truly glad you’re not that woman, Madeleine.”

I took a small step toward him and he reciprocated, moving only when I moved and only so far as I went, until we met halfway and faced each other. “You say that now, but you’ll undoubtedly learn that I won’t have my hand forced, not by threat or magic or fear or, sadly, even love. I make my decisions in my own time, so don’t get too excited about finding the perfect minister to officiate just yet.” Though it still surprised the hell out of me, I admitted, “I like you, but that doesn’t a marriage make. Let’s see how this goes and also see how things with Bahlin work out before we go jumping from any bridges.” I laid my hand flat on his bare chest, and the feel of his heart was soothing to me. I jerked my hand back.

He reached out and traced my cheek with his thumb. “I understand the fear of what might be, but why not celebrate what is? You respond to me, I respond to you. For now, it’s enough.” He shook his head, and a crooked grin graced his lips. “It’s amazing to me, this shift, but I’ll accept it at face value. I wish you’d consider the same so we could at the very least see what lies between us.”

“Seems like you weren’t listening.” I smiled to lessen the sting of my words. “I don’t trust anything like this, Hellion, particularly anything this easy. I just don’t. And you sound like you’re trying to get into my pants, nothing more.” He opened his mouth, undoubtedly protest, but I held up my hand to stop him. “You’ve done an emotional one-eighty— first wanting me dead before declaring me your true love because someone told you to. I’m skeptical, no matter what I inexplicably feel. I’m disappointed I let things get as far as they did this morning.” I stepped back and he followed me. “Back off, Hellion.” I sighed. It felt like I’d spent the morning telling men to give me some space.

He took a step back and reciprocated my sigh but his was followed by a sudden grin. “This will be great fun.”

“What?”

“Convincing you to follow your heart.”