Yearnings: A Paranormal Romance Box Set (100 page)

That brought him up short. He frowned deeply, shaking his head. “I don’t understand.”

“
In the vision, after they beat you, after they took Tristan,” she continued, the image of Tristan coming up, fists ready, kicking and fighting his abductors despite the awful sobs and screams. “You became a wolf. You got up, looked at me, and limped away.”

He stared at her as though she’d lost an eye, or maybe her mind. “I don’t understand. Symbols? Not a vision of the actual events, but of the facts.”

Uh-oh. She didn’t like the anger in his eyes. But this is what she had prepared for, so she pressed on. “No. Not pieces or symbols thrown together. It comes in like a stream. Like watching a play, or like eavesdropping in plain sight. What I saw is what happened. I’m sure of it.”

Wildness reached his eyes. “That is not possible. A woman saved me. She gave me the wolf soul. I couldn’t have become a wolf when Tristan was kidnapped, because she hadn’t found me yet. She didn’t find me until hours later.”

Leigh was prepared for questions about Tristan, not an interrogation about what she saw. “How do you know that she didn’t lie to you?” That assumed, of course, that he was basing his facts on what his savior told him.

His pupils widened as he looked at her mouth. His lids lowered. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear his earlier passion was creeping back into those icy blue-gray eyes. What a ridiculous time to become enamored, though. He looked away a moment, then back again, the glimpse of desire gone. “Then you know what they look like.”

Ah, yes. Here it was—what she feared telling him the most. “No. I’m sorry. In the vision, I saw you, almost as though I was Tristan. Then I saw him, scared and crying. Then two men took him.” The vision replayed in her mind again. Tristan getting in a solid kick to one man’s shins. Him yelping and raising a fist, but the other man stopping him. Leigh sucked in a breath. “Red shoes!”

Grant took her by the shoulders as if he were going to shake her. “No games, Leigh. No more games.”

“
I’m not playing games. I’m remembering.” She pulled free, though his hold had gentled. “The red shoes that came through when I first met Beatrice. The wasps in my stomach, the red on my shoes.” Leigh sucked in a breath. Her vision blurred. She reached out and found the nearby bench. She sat, trying to breathe past the realization that kicked the air out of her lungs. “Not red.”

“
Tell me,” Grant said, pain and anger in his voice.

Leigh shut her eyes, a hand going to her forehead. “Not red shoes. Blood, Grant. Oh no. Your blood all over his shoes.” Nausea rose up her throat.

“
His shoes? Whose shoes?”

Leigh shook her head. Tears were coming. She could feel them stinging the backs of her eyes and no matter what she tried, she knew they would spill. No crying. That was her rule. No crying. Her father needed her to be strong in the face of so much sorrow, and he made her swear, always, no crying.
Daddy, where are you now?

Grant’s face blurred as the tears welled. Leigh released a ragged breath. “I wish I knew.”

~~~

Chapter Eighteen

The room began to spin. Or was it the thoughts in his head going so fast, the wolf trying so hard to take over, that he’d lost sense of solid ground? Grant grappled with Leigh’s words. Red shoes. He remembered the red shoes. At eye level. The memories he fought to keep in the dark climbed forward, clawing his heart. Red. So very red. Yes, he saw how that crimson hue that stained his mind could be blood. It was like he was there again, his body and heart smashed. The pale light of a neon sign flickered. Or was it from the people walking by, their bodies blocking the light as they passed?

No one would help him. He knew that as he lay there.

“
Grant!”

His vision adjusted back to the small train car. The hideous green, the texture of the velvet and damask. He might vomit.
Breathe. Breathe. There that was it.
His pulse raced in his veins, rushing in his head. Why hadn’t he realized the red was blood? The recognition made him see they weren’t women’s shoes at all. Not the ones like Lijuan wore, with the little block bottoms that she somehow balanced on.

No. The shoes weren’t Eastern at all. They were Western. Men’s business shoes. Not that seeing immigrants adopting American clothing was uncommon. Working jeans with tunics were common enough. Still, those shoes didn’t quite fit.

“
Grant?” Leigh said his name again. “Say something. What do you need me to do? Get Bea?”

No! He shook his head. “Water.”

She pressed a glass to his lips and a cool cloth to his forehead. “Say something.”

“
The person in those shoes wasn’t my rescuer. Not a witness, either. I always hoped those red shoes meant something good. Some sort of hope.” They were the last thing he saw. “Whose blood?”

“
I don’t know. I wasn’t sure if it was real blood or...symbolic. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to shock you like this.”

Grant looked up. At some point, he’d sat in one of the two armchairs. The wolf inside him whined. It wanted out. Badly. There was a soul near. It wanted to free a stolen soul. As much as Grant appreciated his role in rescuing these stolen souls, he could not risk another murder.
Tristan. Please let him simply be taken, not one of the victims of this horrific serial theft. Soul theft.

“
What is it?” Leigh said, coming to her knees onto the floor in front of him.

Looking at her made him ache. She was everything he could never have. She almost glowed as much as the stolen souls. And she had no idea she held such inner light. He hated this curse, this wolf in him, the burden it was forcing on him.

“
Grant, please. There is nothing you can say that will shock me. I think we can agree that we’ve allowed our attraction to be a welcome distraction. It’s time to come clean now.”

Her words poured over him, washing him clean. His heartbeat began to slow. The nausea swept back. The wolf retreated. She was right. Of course, she was right. “Where do I start?”

Leigh gave a weak smile that revealed her relief. “How about from the beginning?”

“
We don’t have time to start there.”

“
Where do you have to be? As far as I can see, we have two days to align the stars and understand every side of this story.”

An aura, that’s what he was seeing. Her aura. Grant did his best not to scowl. He didn’t want to see any blasted auras or glows anymore. “The beginning.”

Leigh narrowed her eyes on him. “It isn’t that difficult, Grant. Unless you make it so.”

She wanted the truth, did she? From the beginning? Well, she’d better brace herself. “I crossed the wrong tong boss. That is where this began. Me, young, dumb, and gambling. The usual haunts weren’t reckless enough. I wanted to see an opium den. I wanted to prove to my father that he would never, ever rule me.”

He could still see the exact shade of purple his father would turn upon hearing of Grant’s latest escapade. Eggplant. No, maybe more of a currant color.

“
I smoked opium. I gambled. I got tangled up with the tong boss’s daughter. She wanted marriage. I’d dishonored her, his family. He showed me what they did to men like me. Tristan was with me. Beating me to the brink of death wasn’t enough.”

“
Now, how about you fill in the blanks that you gave Bea in that story?”

Smart girl. Too smart. “You first.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
I’m not the only one out to protect someone from the truth. Who’s Jacob?”

She fidgeted. Her jaw flexed. “I think it would be smarter to maintain a straight path from point A to point B.”

“
Bullshit. You want truth? Tit for tat, Miss Hamilton.”

Her eyes flashed. “Jacob is a ghost.”

Grant arched one eyebrow. “Oooh. Big secret. I’ve already pieced that much together, princess.”

“
Princess?” Her eyebrows drew together, and her lips pushed out. “How about you tell me the real reason you were ambushed and left in the gutter to die?”

Anger sparked inside him. Better than sorrow and pain, though. Plus, she looked damned good when she glared like that. “Touché. Bea doesn’t know about the girl. Our father got wind of it, though. He caused a lot of problems for the tong. So I kept tempting fate. I kept seeing her. She kept seeing me. We thought we were in love.”

Her demeanor changed. The edge of her anger softened. Grant couldn’t handle softer right now. Not if he wanted to get through everything without breaking down.

“
But you know all about love, don’t you, Leigh? What was his name again? Harry?”

“
Henry,” she corrected, lips thinning. “Henry Pontouse, a man who wouldn’t know you from Adam, and whom I only wanted to give a slap in the face with that note. When I wrote it, I’d figured that you decided not to let your sister hire me. I didn’t have anything to lose, and never in all my days thought you’d see what I’d written.”

“
So you loved him enough to hurt him.”

“
He humiliated me. I needed to hurt him back.”

“
Trust me, revenge gets you nothing.”

“
Yes, well, he made a fool of me. He wooed me so well that I crossed an ocean to discover he’d had a ‘change of heart.’ Or claimed to.”

Grant shook his head and looked her over, head to toe. The faint pink of the air around her glowed, a promise that beckoned to him in all sorts of forbidden ways. “Then he was the fool. Not you.”

“
I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I’d send the note. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me feel tons better.” She folded her arms. “Your turn.”

Damn it. It was his turn. “We thought we were in love. The girl, Biyu, got pregnant.” He saw the way Leigh’s eyes became guarded, and how tears smarted. “Somewhere out there, I might have a son or daughter. I can’t be sure, because Tristan was taken on the day I found out that she was pregnant.” He watched her face for the signs of horror that he long imagined Beatrice would show. “I took Tristan with me, hoping that I’d somehow show her father I was father material. I had a ring. I was going to ask permission to marry her. Formally. But she was already gone. So I paid my debts and left. Less than a few blocks away, they accosted us.”

“
They took Tristan as retribution?”

“
I used to think so. It made sense before now. Biyu’s honor was ruined. Her family’s honor. I see now that we never could have married. I imagine they found her a husband and wanted to make sure I never lived to beg her differently.”

“
You said ‘used to think.’ What changed?” There was an edge to her voice. Fear.

Grant met her gaze, unwavering, though his guts wobbled. Saying what he saw, speaking the words, terrified the wolf. It scared him, too. “I still don’t understand your dream, seeing me become a wolf as I lay dying. For the first few years of having it in me, I just blacked out. It would take over, and I would wake up somewhere wondering what happened. Usually covered in blood.”

Leigh nodded, encouraging him.

“
The day I met you, everything changed. The man on the ship isn’t the first I’ve killed, but the first I merely left to die. I’d gone back to my apartment, needing to sort out what you said. Did Bea tell you what the wasps meant?”

“
No.”

“
Our mother poisoned herself. I don’t know what she took, but Beatrice and I found her at her last breaths, clutching her stomach. She begged us to make the stinging stop. She died before either of us could think to find help. I don’t know that we could have found anyone, anyhow. The help had left for the day. Our father wasn’t home.”

Leigh’s face fell. Her hands went to her own belly. “What mother could do that to her babies?”

“
Mine, apparently. I don’t think she intended for us to find her. She and my father were set to go out to some business party. We were supposed to be at Eliza’s for the night. But Eliza got a fever, and we were sent home.”

“
I’m so sorry, Grant.”

His heart squeezed so hard in his chest that he stood, walking to the window. The landscape whizzed past, the day darkening with each passing moment. “It’s moot now. It was a long, long time ago. I only wanted to tell you because I’m not sure you were aware of it that day in the church. Something changed that day. It’s as if the wolf was waiting for you this entire time. It had to find you in order to share what it wanted of me.”

“
Waiting for me? But...?”

“
That night, I started to feel the wolf. Feel it at the surface, feel its instincts. It drove me to follow a man who I mistook as following me. He glowed. The edge of his hairline, around his eyes. His lips. A golden light showed. I followed him, and under the driving urges of the wolf, I let that light out of him.”

Leigh’s mouth, those perfect bow shaped lips, hung agape.

“
A soul. A soul he paid for.” He thought of the soul on this train he was avoiding releasing. Guilt pinged through him. He had to share these facts first. If he had to put Leigh and Beatrice in danger, then by God, one of them had to understand why. First, Leigh. Then Beatrice. “The wolf can see, can sense, these stolen souls.” Now for the hard part. The part that he didn’t want to believe. “The souls are children’s souls.”