Yearnings: A Paranormal Romance Box Set (32 page)

“
Three or so.” Jen’s worry showed in her eyes. But if she’d felt Sadie’s brand new, fuzzy wing pass through her hip, she didn’t register it. “Want to grab some Pita Jungle with me? Split a chicken platter?”

She wanted to hide under the covers. “I have a job still?”

Jen frowned. “Why wouldn’t you?”

Because she hadn’t been there in two weeks and hadn’t called a soul to warn them? Had she? Had someone covered her ass somewhere? “What did you tell Cynthia?”

Jen cleared her throat. “I said I’d have you call her.” She wrung her hands. “So, Pita Jungle?”

“
Um, okay. Can I shower first?”

“
Definitely,” Jen said, emphatically.

Sheesh. She must look like death on roller skates.

Watching Jen scurry out, guilt panged at Sadie. She shoved up from the mattress and dragged herself into the shower.

Her heart ached for Elijah but she was alive. Still breathing. Still had golden wings and they’d grown. Their soft feel surprised her almost as much as how familiar they felt. As familiar as her own skin or hair or hands. Her lungs filled with sweet air as she took deep breaths, watching them expand and flutter.

She mentally rallied and, ten minutes later, stepped out of the bathroom feeling vaguely normal. What a wonder that everything could end up being alright. When she rounded the corner, though, her world fell flat. There, on Jen’s solitary sofa, sat Dr. Meyers. And Heather and Remy. And Jen. And Ben.

Ben? What was Ben doing here? What were any of them doing here?

No, wait, before the questions finished bashing through her consciousness, she knew the answer.

Intervention.

Sadie paused, considered running, then sat down cross-legged on the floor. “Et tu, Jen?” she said but didn’t mean it. Jen could only protect her so much. Sadie always knew it might come to this.

Jen winced. “I’m sorry.”

“
That’s okay, Jen. I knew what I was getting into,” Sadie said. Her heart numbed. Her mind stayed frozen on a moment in time that wouldn’t go away. Elijah walking away. Compared to that, this would be a breeze. “Alright. Who goes first?”

*

Elijah wiped the sweat from his neck with a towel. Sparring with Monica got harder every day. She was progressing nicely. They were lucky to have her.

Holly handed him a bottle of water. “Being a little aggressive today, aren’t you?”

Elijah drank the water, catching his breath. “She can take it.”

“
She wouldn’t tell you if she couldn’t, you know. Not that you’d ask.”

“
Ask her yourself when she gets back,” he said. Holly’d been hovering for days. As though waiting for something. Maybe for him to snap.

Everything had fallen apart when he saw Sadie’s wings. He’d let Sadie walk away. How could he not? He never should have brought her here. He’d destroyed her life.

“
Elijah, who are you punishing here?” Holly pressed, placing her hand on his arm.

He didn’t need her concern and shook her off. “Not now, Holly.” If she pressed him today, he’d say something he’d regret. He wanted to blame her for Sadie becoming something else. Why had Holly pointed them in Sadie’s direction in the first place? What gave her the gall to claim messenger? In truth
,
though, it wasn’t Holly’s fault.

Elijah had interfered that night at the club. He’d never regret doing so either.

“
When
,
then?” She stepped closer and placed a hand on his chest. “Elijah, I can’t lose you, too. If you continue like this, you’ll implode.”

Elijah snorted. “Let’s not be dramatic.”

“
I’m not. Look at you. Ever since Sadie left, you’ve been here, sparring. With Lyric, with Monica.”

“
Jealous? Want a round with me, too?”

Holly shook her head. “Will anything ever matter to you as much as finding him does?” Holly asked.

Elijah drank again, wondering where her question had come from. Her quiet tone didn’t fool him. Something was up. “It’s not that nothing matters more,” he said, between gulps. Lots of things mattered more. Things he couldn’t entertain. “It’s that until I know what happened to him, I can’t give what else matters the focus it deserves.”

“
Why?” She sounded hurt.

“
It’s like an enigma, nagging me, constantly, and if I don’t solve it, I’ll go crazy. How can I give anything the kind of attention it deserves when I’m this distracted?”

“
In all this time, you’ve never said what it is, Elijah, that makes you more at fault than any of us.”

He’d thought he was protecting them. Maybe she and Lyric should know. Maybe then they would stop acting as though it was over. “I called Crusoe a fool if he thought you loved him. I told him he was the last one of us you could ever love.”

Holly
’s
honey eyes sparked gold. “Why would you say that?”

“
Because I was angry. Because he’d lied to us. Because the thought of what equated to my brother and my sister being in love sickened me.”

“
But you said the last one of us. If not him, who would I love?”

Elijah scowled. “No one. I was trying to hurt him, like he’d hurt me.”

“
Elijah, do you believe in love?”

He laughed humorlessly. Belief wasn’t the battle. “I believe too many adulterate the word. I believe love is more than the petty and obsessive and betraying thing Crusoe claimed to feel for you.”

“
But you do believe in love?”

Of course he did. “Crusoe and I were children together. We became men together.” Now, he realized Crusoe had loved Holly. But that day Elijah had unwittingly forced him to choose. And that choice led to Crusoe leaving, then disappearing altogether. “Crusoe may be involved in the most dangerous faction known to both realms. If I didn’t believe in love, would I still be trying to save him?”

Holly looked at him for a long moment. Something about his answer must have pleased her. “Oh, goody,” she said at last.

Elijah watched her go. Not for the first time, he felt alone in his convictions. Where had their fight gone?

He missed Sadie. More than missed her. Sadie’s departure left a chasm inside him that he couldn’t comprehend. He found himself wondering how he could have so misjudged Crusoe’s unrequited feelings for Holly. Was this what drove his brother to the Illeautians? This emptiness? This weight of impossible hope? How Elijah had found the strength to let Sadie go at all, he’d never know. Every moment became a new test of will. He didn’t know how much more resolve he had left before he would selfishly seek her out.

Every day he thought of a new argument to bring her back. She wasn’t a messenger. Still, she was one of them. He could still help her adjust to the immortal realm. But he wanted her. And he didn’t trust himself to not seduce her again and again. Remembering, every minute, how much more it would torture her, helped. He’d hurt her enough. Sadie deserved more than uncontrollable lust.

Monica materialized in front of him and smacked him on both cheeks. “Boosh!”

Elijah grinned half-heartedly. Monica was a good distraction.

“
What’s got fire crotch in such a tizzy?” she said before disappearing.

Not that she truly disappeared. She became the window, the floor, the wall. Camouflaged. Her movements over the floor were harder to track each day. And she’d learned to silence her vibration. Elijah concentrated. “I have no idea. I think we all feel a bit lost is all.” Empty without her near.

A movement of air made him turn. He punched, not hard, and made a direct hit. Monica grunted and materialized again. “No way is Holly lost. She left here on a mission.”

An eerie sensation prickled over his scalp. He shook off the disturbing feeling and focused on Monica. Sending Elijah an image of him walking down the hall, Lyric warned him he was coming, his vibration cloaked. What was with those two today? Holly pushing at him with her cryptic questions, now Lyric thought he needed notice to enter a room?

“
Do you mind taking a break?” Elijah said.

“
Thought we just did.” Monica touched her head. “Oh. Lyric’s turn, eh? I hate it when he elbows into my freaking brain.”

Elijah chuckled. “Tomorrow I’ll show you how to keep him out.”

Lyric strode in but didn’t look ready to spar. The sensation returned, this time prickling in Elijah’s chest. “What is it?”

Lyric was holding something. “Sadie left this. I think you should see it.”

Elijah took the leather bound book and opened it to a worn page. Sadie’s words wrapped around him, describing him in great detail, questioning each description at length. He turned one page
,
then another, noting the paint smudges here and there. She wasn’t simply describing him, her crush from afar, but dreams of him as well. The more he read, the tighter his chest grew.

“
How did you get this?” he demanded.

“
I gave it to him. Sadie brought them back with her,” Monica said. “Friday, was it? Yeah, after her appointment. Her sister brought them to her doctor’s visit. Sadie was so pissed. The way she was clutching at them, you’d think they were made of gold. When she left them behind, I took them. I gave them to Lyric.”

“
Why Lyric?”

“
I don’t know. First one I saw, I guess.”

Elijah’s mind calculated. He pushed the open book at Lyric. “Am I jumping to conclusions or do these entries smack of predictions?”

“
Why do you think I brought it to you,” Lyric said and flipped through it himself.

“
But she’s become a seeker. She grew wings
.
”

“
Small wings. And she was human only weeks ago. I think it would behoove us to not assume we know anything about what happens when humans become changelings.”

Monica nodded. “If you think that one’s juicy, you should see the other one. Her mom’s.”

“
You read this?” Elijah asked. “There’s another?”

Monica jutted her chin higher. “Yes.”

“
Where’s the other one?”

Monica scratched by her eye. “I, uh
—
.“

“
Holly took it with her,” Astrid said from the door, startling them. She had left them, standing against their harboring changelings, then had a change of heart. Enough so that she’d healed Sadie. “She dreamed of you, Elijah, before you came to her. She knew. Her wings aren’t like yours.”

He remembered Sadie telling him as much. The dread in his chest widened. “Where is Holly?” he asked Lyric, listening for a trace of her.

The black shine in Lyric’s gaze made Elijah’s worry climb. “I can’t get a feed on her,” Lyric said. “She’s blocking me.”

“
Monica what’s in the other journal?” Elijah demanded.

She shrugged. “Not much of it was coherent. Lo
ts
of end of days and God and realms kind of stuff. The angels will come, the winged man will come for her.”

“
Astrid?” Elijah implored, unsure what he was asking her
,
but she seemed to know.

“
I haven’t seen it myself
,
but if it belonged to the mother and the daughter transformed….”

And Holly had it now. Her questions before she left, combined with his answers, and turning his dread icy. “Then she’s taken the journal to Sadie.”

“
She thinks it means something,” Lyric said
,
but his voice lacked conviction. “Why wouldn’t she tell us?”

“
Because she is trying to find Crusoe on her own. Because she’s trying to help, too much, once again.”

“
Yeah, to help. Right,” Monica said. “She’s trying to win you, Elijah,”

Elijah met her steady gaze. His head pounded as he shook it. “Holly’s like a sister to me.”

“
Well, your sister wants to screw your brains out,” Monica replied.

Elijah’s mouth fell open. He snapped it shut. It didn’t matter. What mattered was finding Holly. He didn’t want to believe Holly would seek Crusoe alone
,
but he also couldn’t deny evidence stacking in his mind against her. She’d left with the journal alone. She was blocking Lyric. The things she’d said.
Would anything matter to you as much as finding Crusoe?

Elijah cursed. Holly had no reason to harm Sadie and yet if what Monica claimed…. “I have to get to Sadie.”

Before he could transport
,
though, Astrid grasped his arm. “Don’t go alone.”

Elijah couldn’t express how glad he was she’d changed her mind and come back.

“
Take me,” Monica demanded.

“
Like hell,” Lyric said. “You barely have control of your powers. You can’t create a shield. You hardly know Holly. I’m going.”

“
I know her well enough,” Monica insisted. “And I know Sadie as well as either of you.”

“
What can that matter? We have to assume the worst. Either Holly is hell bent on finding a lead, or she’s bent on eliminating one, namely Sadie. We can’t know.”