He realized he should have thought that interaction through a little better. Truth was, he was tired of being on the fringes of life, an invisible bystander. With all the clues he’d given the team, he would have thought they’d pick up on the fact that something bizarre was going on. The Legion certainly would have, but then, they were trained to see the bizarre.
“Merry Christmas, Mom,” Selena said. She’d called her parents after the kids had opened their presents. And after the huge breakfast spread that Jim and Russ had put out for the team. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come home this year.”
That was a lie, and she felt a little guilty saying it. She could have, but she would have had to miss Max and Hope’s wedding.
“That’s all right, sweetheart. We’re disappointed too, but we do understand. I know you’ll have fun at your friends’ wedding. Did you get the care package I sent?”
“I did. The cookies were the best ever. And I loved the sweater, too. Thank you.”
They made small talk for a little while and spent some time catching up on what the aunts, uncles, and distant cousins were up to. Selena was trying to keep things light, but the whole time she was a hairsbreadth from crying.
She wanted to go home, wanted the hole in her heart to heal so that she could quit feeling this awful aloneness.
“Is everything okay, honey?” her mom asked.
Selena drew a deep breath, forcing herself to sound composed. “Yeah. Great.”
“Are you enjoying your work there?” her dad asked. She supposed he’d been listening in on speaker the whole time.
“Always.”
“Good. That’s great. I worry about you.”
“No need to. Look, I have to go. I’ll call again in a few more days. Things here will be quiet for a while after the wedding.”
“I look forward to that, honey. Love you.”
She hung up shortly afterward, feeling worse than ever.
Seriously, something was not right with her, like her mind was out of step with her heart, and she didn’t know how to sync them back up.
9
Today was a big day at the Red Team’s headquarters. It was finally time to celebrate Max and Hope’s wedding. Bastion had been at the house almost a month; his time there was running out. Liege wanted him back at the fort. And Bastion didn’t know how much more Selena could take of their secret life that he kept her from remembering. Ever since their night in the woods, Bastion had tried staying away from her.
That seemed to be having the desired outcome. There was less stress in her face.
Now that the kids had vacated the gym, the big room was available for today’s wedding. The austere room had been completely transformed with sprawling screens and flowers and lights, making it look magical, putting him in mind of all the things that could be possible in life and in love, if two people just fought hard enough for what they wanted.
Bastion watched the ceremony and the following celebration. Selena was sitting at a table with her friends, yet somehow alone in the midst of so much joy. He felt what she was feeling, and it cut deep. If he were truthful with himself, he would admit he'd felt a similar loneliness all the years since he'd been changed. At least he had his team, who’d been subject to the same restrictions and experiences, so he had friends to commiserate with. And they had always let him indulge in his human rituals of dating and charming and seducing human females, though none of that had meant to him what he’d hoped it would.
He'd been pretending to be a human for almost a quarter of his life. The irony was that the more he pretended, the less human he felt. Now, having met his female, everything, all the lies he’d fed himself all those years, felt hollow and lacking.
Selena, come to me. He could feel her response to him, her desire to answer his summons. He could also feel her fear and confusion. Something outside of herself was driving her emotions and behavior, and she hated that.
She was exceptionally sensitive. He wished he’d been able to show himself to her before this.
He left the gymnasium building, returning to the main part of the house. He took the back stairs up to the hidden attic access door on this side of the house. The kids had cleared a large area in the middle of the room. He smiled as he remembered the games they played. It had been an eternity since he was a kid. Like the boys who lived here, his own childhood had been rife with challenges, but he’d always tried to shield his brother from the worst of it all.
He missed that punk terribly.
Selena sat in the basketball court with the rest of the team and their families. The cubs were lined up in two rows facing the tables, dressed in their khaki pants and blue blazers, which they’d somehow kept clean all through dinner. Wynn had worked with them to learn a few holiday songs and some folk wedding songs as a gift to Max and Hope. Greer played their background music. Angel videoed their performance, and Ace took photos of both the boys performing and everyone watching them.
It was something to hear the boys sing together. They played off each other flawlessly, making their harmonies ethereal. Most of them still had feminine pitches, as their voices hadn’t yet deepened. The others had rich male voices.
Hope was wiping her eyes. Max looked stoic. Selena felt the music deep inside her, playing with her emotions, haunting her mind. When the cubs finished their recital, Greer switched into DJ mode, lining up songs for the team to dance to. The first was a slow one, giving Max and Hope the chance to have a dance. Others soon joined them. Selena was keenly aware, as she watched couples move to the dance floor, that all the adults present had partners…except for her and the two oldest boys in the pride.
How was she ever going to find her significant other while she worked with the team in this isolated location of Nowhere, Wyoming? Her mood had darkened in a way that clashed with the joy of the evening. She quietly left the room and exited the gym building, desperately needing some space to compose herself.
She went down the hall toward the back stairs in the south bedroom wing, seeking a quiet place to gather herself. How could so much joy make her feel the hard edge of her emptiness?
She ached to belong somewhere…to someone. She felt the strange pressure of tears behind her eyes, which pissed her off. She wasn’t by nature a crybaby. Tears accomplished nothing. The holidays had made her feel a little raw, as if she’d been peeled open. She heard someone coming down the hall from the gym. Not feeling like being social, she went up the back stairs, hoping to avoid whoever it was.
Outside the door to her room, she leaned against the wall. She didn’t want to hide in her room. God, she was tired of being alone, even in a big crowd of friends.
After a minute, she realized she was standing opposite the hidden attic door, which was just slightly ajar. Was someone up there? She went through the door, flipped on the lights, and went up the stairs. The lighting was meager. One of the bulbs was out. Strange that she’d felt drawn to go up there, but it was a good place to be by herself. It took coming all the way up to the attic for the happy wedding music to fade. She stood in the middle of the room and shut her eyes.
Being still like this, she could almost feel him. Who was he? And why did he feel so much more real than just an imaginary person?
She was there, at last, his beautiful, statuesque warrior. Liege imposed on his team a firm rule about not messing with regulars, but Selena wasn’t just any regular. She was Bastion’s light. His hope. His future.
Bastion drew her into a trance that only the two of them shared. He would wipe this memory from her mind along with all of their interactions, at least until it was safe for him to give them back to her. He felt as if they were building a relationship, though he knew in truth it was only one-sided.
But damn it all, it was a fantasy he needed right now.
And so did she.
The loneliness that ached within her grew like a cancer. Loner or not, this woman was not meant to be alone. Nor was he. The tension eased from her face the closer she came to him. If o
nly this were real—she would feed his soul, and he hers.
Christmas lights strung across the rafters gave the cavernous space a sense of romance. The kids had made use of extra strands left over from the holiday decorations used elsewhere in the house. Bastion lit them with just a thought. They cast a soft, multicolored glow over the forgotten space around him and her.
Bastion waited for her to come close. Though Selena was acting under his compulsion, the moment still felt magical. She studied his face, her gaze moving from his eyes to his nose to his mouth and then his beard. He was wearing a beige wool sweater and a pair of black jeans, not the layered tunics he normally wore. He wished he had a tux as glamorous as her beautiful outfit. Even with her heels on he was taller than her by several inches. He liked the difference in their sizes. His woman was powerful and could be a force to be reckoned with, but at the moment she seemed slight and feminine in comparison to his bulk. In truth, her size made her more agile than his human self would have been.
"Bon nuit,” he said.
She licked her lips; the motion her tongue made tightened his entire body. Even though she was entranced, she was still in possession of all of her habitual boundaries. "You again," she said.
He smiled. “Oui. C’est moi. Again,” he said, smiling just slightly. "I wished to have a dance with you, but feared the sight of you dancing in my arms, when you alone could see me, might frighten your friends."
“It would.”
He held his arms open and made just the slightest of bows. "Will you dance with me?"
For a moment, he held his breath. He didn’t compel her response, so however she reacted, he would have to accept. But, to his everlasting delight, she stepped into his arms. Their stance was formal, with a generous space between their bodies. They couldn't hear the music up there, but Bastion had found an antique record player during his early exploration of the attic. In preparation for tonight, he’d cleaned it off and plugged it in, playing some of the old records that were dumped in the attic with all the other forgotten things.
He used his telekinetic skills to start one of those records playing. The sound it produced seemed to hang in the air without any real substance.
Dancing with Selena was heaven. She moved like an extension of him. Bastion lost himself looking into her eyes. They moved across the entire bare space of the attic, their eyes never losing contact. Everything about her was heaven.
How had the Matchmaker known she was perfect for him? Instead of finding and killing him, perhaps Bastion should thank him.
Of course, there was still the matter of the curse they had to contend with, but his woman was strong. Together, he knew they could beat whatever challenges the curse brought them.
Bastian still hadn’t told his team about Selena—except for Merc. This was too new, too rare, too tenuous for him to expose it to the glaring inspection of his team. Merde alors, even Selena, the object of his fate, didn't fully know about him. At least not consciously. Bastion sighed. This was all so elusive; it could be swept away at any moment. And perhaps it should. Hooking up with a mutant couldn't be good for a human female.
As they moved around the room, Selena’s hard eyes softened. What he would give to have her look at him consciously the way she was while in this trance. When the music ended, there was a click from the turntable as the next record dropped. Bastion slowed his steps, bringing Selena closer to him, his arms around her waist, hers around his neck. Each step they took moved their bodies in gentle swaying motions against each other. Bastion bent his head toward her neck and let his lips graze her skin. Her reaction skittered along her skin, raising gooseflesh on his as well.
She reached up to touch his cheeks, just above his beard, with the cool tips of her fingers. Their dancing slowed even further. He kept his arms around her waist, but he spread his fingers over her lower back, fighting the urge to explore her as she did him. He tried to smile to lighten the mood, but he couldn't. Her green eyes were so intense that he could do nothing but stare into them. She leaned forward and he leaned down, and then their lips were touching. She slipped her fingers into his hair pulling him even closer as she ground her mouth against his.
The kiss lasted seconds, minutes, or an eternity—Bastion lost track of time as they shared themselves with each other. Her body fit against his in ways he never imagined possible. In a flash of insight, he could picture what their future lives might be like. They would fight the Omnis, two warriors in sync with each other, so much more devastating together than apart. The possibilities were intense and exciting.
And they filled him with dread.
What if they did share their lives for some period, be it short or long, only to lose each other? It would kill him. And if the Matchmaker’s curse was a guaranteed outcome, what he was feeling for her now, before they’d really even begun, meant his death would come soon after hers.
The hedonistic part of him wanted to set all of his fears aside and be here in the moment with her, storing all of their seconds together so that he would never forget her. If he survived losing her, she would be the ideal against which he would forever measure other women. He knew without a doubt that none would make the cut.
She leaned her temple against his jaw, no longer trying to direct their movements in the dance as she had since the beginning tonight. But then they weren’t moving anywhere except against each other. He kissed the crown of her head and breathed in her scent. The music had stopped a while ago, but Bastion couldn’t bring himself to separate from her long enough to reset it.
In the midst of this heaven, Bastion became aware of someone coming up the stairs. It was one of her team. Owen, the blond guy the team belonged to and for whom she had a special affection.
Bastion turned her so she was facing the stairway, but kept his arms around hers, holding her close, wishing their time together hadn't ended. Connected to her as he was, Bastion realized that the affection he’d been sensing that she held for Owen was the same as she felt for everyone else on her team. There was something more, too. A longing, an emptiness, but not for Owen specifically, nor the other big blond on the team. It was more that she wished to experience a love of her own, something neither Owen nor any of the men here could have given her.
She yearned for the very things that Bastion wanted.
Bastion kept himself hidden from her and Owen as she left his trance, leaving behind all memory of the time they'd spent together here in the attic.
Selena wrapped her arms around herself, and in her mind, it was as if he, her make-believe lover, wrapped his arms over hers. She pretended to feel the warmth of his body against her back. He was tall. Her height did nothing to intimidate him.
She let her mind dwell in the fantasy of her daydream. Briefly, for the space of a breath or two, she felt less alone, but that respite made the persistent ache of her longing all the more acute.
Someone was coming up the stairs—had to be one of the guys, given the heavy footsteps she was hearing. Owen cleared the stairs.
“Sel.” He nodded toward the stairs as he came toward her. “I’m trying to discourage Troy from using the attics alone. Saw the door open and wondered who was up here.” He frowned as he looked around.
“Just me.” And the phantom lover she’d conjured in her mind.
“Troy’s run-in with Captain Hook a few days ago was odd,” Owen said.
“How so?”
“He said the man he saw asked if he was the leader’s son.”
The warmth of her daydream vanished, leaving a chill behind. “Wow. That’s not something Troy would have made up, is it?”
“No.” Owen prowled around the space, looking behind large pieces of furniture and stacks of junk.
“Maybe Eddie should bring Tank up here,” Selena suggested, feeling embarrassed for having been caught with her imaginary man.
“Whatever it was,” Owen said, “if it was anything, is long gone. Greer checked for electronic surveillance—and ghosts—but didn’t find an
ything.” He opened an old wardrobe. “Maybe there’s some new kind of tech we don’t know about yet, something that piped in the questions Troy said he answered.”
“What…something like telepathy?” As soon as she said it, Selena felt humor from her imaginary friend.
So warm, almost hot, in that guess. You will soon know the truth.
Owen frowned. He straightened and focused on her. “What is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. You looked off there for a minute. You okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.”
“Well, not telepathy,” Owen continued. “I was thinking something like an untethered hologram.”
Ah. A shame—he is cold again.
Owen’s pale eyes studied her. She refused to squirm. “What are you doing up here?” he asked. “You’ve been up here for a while. They’ve already cut the cake and moved to the game room to relax. The kids are in the theater room watching a movie Greer put on for them.”
Selena looked at her watch. She’d been gone more than an hour. How was that possible?
“Guess I just needed some space.” She turned and looked behind her, still feeling the presence she’d conjured up a few minutes ago. Nothing was there. She needed to talk to Greer. Maybe he’d felt something too but hadn’t been comfortable telling the team they had a ghost.
She sighed. Whatever had just happened, her solace was broken—she might as well go downstairs and rejoin the festivities. As she moved toward Owen, she felt a pressure in her head, like the beginnings of a headache. Owen looked like he was suffering one too. He rubbed his forehead. Maybe a storm was coming through the area. At the altitude where Blade’s house was situated, it was easy to feel shifts in barometric pressure—they often triggered headaches.
Bastion: O-Men: Liege’s Legion Page 8