by Harley James
What if all along he’d only been pursuing her out of a sense of duty as her soul mate?
“Guardians have always assumed we have more than one possible soul mate, but Michael confirmed it this morning.” Her words hung in the stifling car air. His gaze on her face felt like scorching sand under her bare feet, but she kept her eyes on the road.
“I’ve always known that, Kat. I choose you anyway.”
She wriggled her nose when her eyes started to prickle. She flicked the radio on, and Chopin’s “Raindrop Prelude in D-Flat” filled the car with its haunting piano. Ari promptly switched the station to heavy metal. She didn’t dare glance at him before looking down to switch it back to classical.
“Woman.” Ari grabbed the steering wheel and swerved the car back to their side of the road. The passing vehicle’s shrill horn made Katherine’s hair stand on end. The slight tilt to Ari’s beautiful lips meant trouble.
“I know my rakish good looks and masculine charm are distracting, but really, Kat, you need to pay more attention to the road.”
“Oh, shut up,” she muttered, grateful for the levity. No more heavy shit—no matter how much he baits you. He hadn’t come up with any kind of response to her sharing comment, which only confirmed her belief that he didn’t have it in him to be that kind of partner.
He’d always be a Viking wanderer at heart, happier exploring and fighting than living a quiet life with a family. It shouldn’t surprise her.
Or hurt so bad all over again.
She scowled so other emotions would stay buried. “And, just so we’re clear, when Leviathan showed up, I did not go inside because you told me to. I was already on my way to get my crucifix and holy water. So don’t go thinking you have any influence on me.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders as he flipped to a jazz station. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Okay then. His easy acceptance was way more annoying than it should be. She promptly turned the radio off to irritate him.
Then realized they were back to silence.
Ari had always been a chatty one. He’d told her how he used to prattle on with his enemies before running them through with his sword. Must’ve been all those hours on a ship with only the faces of his blood-thirsty comrades. Barbarians, all of them.
Just her shitty cosmic luck to be a reserved, homebody suffragist tied to a loquacious, nomadic savage.
He swiveled in the seat to angle toward her. No easy task when his knees were already pressed against the glove compartment.
Her fingers squeezed the steering wheel until her knuckles paled. “Stop. Staring.” You loquacious, nomadic savage. Yes, she was going to use that description to remind herself not to go to bed with him. He’d make her feel amazing up until the moment he departed.
God.
His gaze now felt like a warm waterfall with her standing naked beneath it.
“How do you plan to handle Leviathan if you’re not going to let me touch you?” he asked softly.
She shivered even though it had to be pushing ninety degrees outside. He seemed so unrattled by Leviathan’s strange arrival. Then again, Alexios had probably already told him that the archdemon had set up camp around Honolulu.
Alexios, Ari, and Raj—another free-agent Guardian like Ari—had fought more archdemon uprisings than any other Guardians. “You can go back to globe-trotting if all you’re going to do is suggest intercourse.”
“I’m open to discussing all kinds of topics with you, but if you’re unwell, you’re worthless against the dark ones. And as my soul mate, that’s my problem, too. However, if you want to focus on intercourse right now, I’m more than happy—”
She held up a hand in front of his face. “And this is why I’ve ignored you all these years. We can’t go two minutes without wanting to kill each other.”
“You’re exaggerating. It’s been at least eight minutes, and I definitely don’t want to kill you. I want to—”
“Let’s just forget it.” She snuck a glance at him. Those damned blue eyes were crinkling at the corners. How many times had she woken up to those eyes looking down into hers as his body slowly, exquisitely, merged with her own?
She wanted that breathless loving again. Wanted it with a desperation that shamed her.
How could she be so aware of wrong choices, but still desire to make them? It was illogical. “I really think you should go back to the Tibetan monks.”
“I’m gratified you’ve been keeping tabs on me after all.” He ignored her pfft, to rudely continue, “It’s only natural that you would. Females can get very possessive of their mates, you know.”
Don’t even look at him or dignify that with a response.
“Some females have even been known to get sick if they go too long without—” His eyebrows raised like he’d had a revelation. “Ahhh, so that’s what’s wrong with you.”
His laughter made her gut feel like it was blooming birds of paradise. Stupid. She stopped her car under the canopy of a banyan tree on a quiet street a few blocks from Aqua. “You know what? This is an exercise in futility. Just go and save us both the trouble.” And heartache.
His palm cupped her wrist where it had dropped to rest on the gear shifter. “You’re always so serious, woman. Maybe stress is another reason you’re sick. I wish you would’ve called for me. No matter how much you piss me off, I’d do anything to help you.”
She did know—maybe that’s why she didn’t call.
She could keep him out of her heart if he wasn’t in her face. Ari in full living color was impossible to resist. “Well, looks like I should have, ’cause little old me can’t possibly handle all those big, scary possessions by myself.”
“Stop being such a harpy. Why do you always think the worst of me?”
Acid flushed through her belly and warmth coated her cheeks. She pulled her hand out from beneath his and looked down as she clasped hers together on her lap. She should apologize, but that would only encourage him.
He twirled the prism that hung from the rearview mirror. “I knew Jade wouldn’t replace the baby we lost…” He cleared his throat. “But I thought she would give you a sense of family.”
The shadow in his voice caught her off guard. She looked over at his profile, a chink fissuring in her wall. Her breath caught, and she quickly looked out the windshield at all the people passing on the street. “Thank you for that, Ari. Honestly. But I can’t be with someone who won’t stand beside me when I’m at my lowest.”
Her palms were starting to sweat again. This sharing bullshit was not for the faint-hearted. Need air. She opened the car door and stood, unable to breathe or stay in her seat one moment longer.
She heard the other car door open and shut, but she still jumped when Ari’s breath fanned the back of her neck.
“I wish I could go back and do it differently. But all I can do is be here now when you need my help.”
She closed her eyes, fighting the little voice that told her this time might be different. Everyone thinks it’s going to be different the next time.
It never was.
She took a deep breath and turned around to face him. “Even if I believed everything you’re telling me, we’re still too different, Ari. Think about what sets your soul free—adventure. You were born a Viking. Eleven hundred years hasn’t changed your drive for exploration. The exhilaration of the unknowns beyond the horizon. It’s not fair to expect you to change. I probably wouldn’t even like you then anyway.”
“Not everything can be perfect, Kat,” he said, brushing the back of his fingers against her cheek.
She ached to lean into his hand, to forget their obstacles and pretend like it would all work itself out. “I know, but this is big picture stuff, can-I-be-happy-with-you-forever stuff. I’m a homebody. I appreciate order and planning and consistency. So we’re stuck, attracted by some absurd, misaligned soul mate matching”—that feels so right—“that’s completely wrong.”
Her stomach was twisting, her throat wa
s swelling, and if she cried right now, she would be so pissed.
“It’s a cosmic mistake if you…ask…me.” Her breath caught on the last word. She blinked rapidly to clear her eyes, appalled at the wavering quality of her voice.
She could see the truth reflected in Ari’s for-once serious gaze. And that look was like the death knoll to their love…or whatever honest connection they’d shared.
Perhaps she’d been keeping him away all these years so she could keep the dream alive that maybe it would actually work. That maybe no differences were too great to make their love irrelevant.
Now that everything was in the open however…
Oh, Ari.
She wrapped her arms around her torso as he ran a hand through his hair. As painful as it was, she couldn’t stop looking at him. The tanned, sinewy forearms, powerful biceps, and broad shoulders that had so often anchored her in the quiet hours before dawn. He would rise above her, silhouetted by gauzy street lights streaming through her open shutters. She would whisper to him, and he would answer with everything he had…
She bit her lip, turning back to her car, ready to barter with the Devil not to let the prickling in her eyes well into a blur of tears.
His hands came around her waist, his voice next to her ear. “We can figure this out, Kat,” he whispered.
She swiped at her eyes, but didn’t turn around. “You can’t unsheathe your sword and fix everything with pure brawn. If it was that easy, I would have had you do it ages ago. But something like this doesn’t work that way.”
Lord, this hurt. Made her chest ache and her whole body lethargic.
But it was better to be sad now on a smaller scale, than know the devastation that would eventually come when his restlessness became too much to ignore.
He’d leave.
He would come back, yes, but then he’d leave again. Over and over. She couldn’t bear it. How did Alexios stand it? Even worse, he had to watch Sophia die in every lifetime. No way.
She slipped into the convertible. Ari stood by her door, looking down at her. “I don’t know what to say.”
If only you could deny everything I just said.
But Ari was always honest, and too impulsive to be devious. Too self-assured to lie.
Even when it cut to the quick.
She started the car and rolled the window down. “I’ll talk to Alexios. Maybe he can convince Michael to sever our connection. There’s got to be a way. I really think it’s for the best.”
“Not for me,” he said.
His eyes were so bleak. Her heart hammered and her fingers itched to turn off the ignition, open the car door, and step into his arms. To erase that desolate look on his face.
“Just because two people love each other doesn’t mean they should be together.” Those were Susan B. Anthony’s wise words to her over a cup of tea so long ago. Flinging them now at Ari, however, extracted far greater pain than when she’d delivered them to a nineteenth-century stockbroker who’d asked to marry her one full-moon night after a women’s rights rally.
When she met Ari, she finally understood why she’d told that stockbroker no.
Very few people could set your soul on fire.
Katherine made herself stare into the fervent blue eyes of the one man who not only set her on fire, but burned her down and made her rise again. “You will find new adventures to lose yourself in. You’ll be fine.”
He shook his head angrily. “No. I’ve made mistakes. Lots of them. You accuse me of being afraid of your grief, but what about you, Kat? You’ve always been afraid, hiding behind condescension and fancy clothes. But you’re still that sad, abandoned little girl who pushes people away before they get close enough to hurt you.”
Burning coals dropped in her gut. She stomped on the gas pedal, but he raised a palm to apply counter wind pressure to the front of her car. Her tires burned rubber, raising acrid smoke that singed her nose and eyes. She let off the gas and pounded on the steering wheel. “Damn you! Why can’t you leave it alone?”
“Because we’ve—” He straightened suddenly, pivoting away from her. Katherine leaned around him to see what had alarmed him.
The hairs tingled on her arms. A pale, beautiful woman stood in the middle of the street in a tailored, navy pantsuit. Everything about her communicated culture and elegance except her curly brown hair. It frizzed like a fuzzy halo around her head and all the way down her back. That hair. It made Katherine uneasy. And the fact that all the people in the vicinity were now frozen in shards of ice.
“Leviathan,” Ari whispered in Katherine’s mind. She startled at the intrusion. It had been so long since she’d let him in telepathically. She didn’t even realize she’d allowed the pathway.
“I hate how daylight doesn’t seem to affect them anymore.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Ari built pressure around them. She tried to unbuckle her seatbelt, but it was stuck.
“Let me go, Grimm, or I swear you’ll regret it.”
“Can’t,” he shot back.
“You mean ‘won’t,’ you chauvinistic creep.”
Leviathan clapped her hands, her laughter tinkling like mid-toned wind chimes. Katherine felt violence rise in Ari. Wind howled through the trees, bashing empty soda bottles, food wrappers, and other garbage against the stuccoed walls of the buildings around them.
“Can she hear us?” Katherine asked Ari, still telepathically.
“Not our words, but she knows we’re communicating. And she can sense the discord. Ergo, she delights in our conflict. Fucking demons.”
“Let me out of this car. Now.”
Leviathan put an elegant hand on one hip. “How positively quaint! A pseudo-chivalrous man in the twenty-first century endeavoring to protect his lady love. So fascinating to meet you Mr. Grimmson. I’ve been looking forward to inspecting the one who reinforced Katherine’s hatred of men.”
Ari didn’t respond, but formed a high-pressure air mass to warm the ice shards encasing the bystanders. As soon as they were free, Katherine sensed infrasound vibrations that indicated he was sending out pulses of mind control at frequencies below the normal threshold of human hearing. The humans scattered in various directions at a dead run.
Katherine had never seen him do that. Mind control was something he’d dabbled in while they were together, but he’d obviously mastered it in the years they’d been apart.
“Very impressive, Viking.” Leviathan sauntered toward Katherine’s car, her gaze never straying from Ari, her long legs and hips moving like she was taking a turn on a European catwalk. “Aren’t you curious why I didn’t stop you?”
“No. Nothing any demon does is ever interesting.”
Leviathan stopped. Her shoulders dropped, and she suddenly looked like a lost little girl.
The hairs on the back of Katherine’s neck rose. “Ari, I feel like a sitting duck here, plus you’re making me look weak.”
Her seatbelt unlatched and a pulse of wind made it retract. She quickly stepped out of the car to stand beside Ari.
“Leave this island, dark one. This is your only warning,” he said.
“I see I’ve gone about this all wrong.” Satan’s daughter waved a pale, long-fingered hand in the air and that strange, lost look was replaced with a warm smile. “It makes sense that you’re being overprotective. But I mean Katherine no harm. On the contrary.” Leviathan’s intense gaze locked on Katherine’s, and Kat felt a sort of raw honesty down to the tips of her designer shoes. “I mean to offer you my protection,” Leviathan finished.
Ari’s booming laugh echoed down the street.
Katherine didn’t feel like laughing. “From what? You?”
“Kat, deals with the Devil end in fire,” Ari warned.
The archdemon froze, the pain in her eyes so…human. “I am not my father.”
Katherine felt Leviathan’s emphatic declaration deep inside. The emotion in Leviathan’s voice carved a hollow in Katherine’s gut and stayed there.
L
eviathan clasped her hands in front of her. “You understand, don’t you, Katherine? We have done wrong ourselves, but the sins of our fathers are not our own. How long are we supposed to pay for their mistakes? Your parents let you down when they should have held on to you.”
…let you down when they should have held on… The words ping-ponged inside Katherine’s mind. Leviathan took a step closer, then stopped when Ari raised his hand. Katherine pushed his arm down. Leviathan looked at her. No, looked inside her.
She felt stripped bare. Yet understood.
No one else could possibly perceive the complicated twist of guilt and anguish she lived with unless they, too, had lived through something so horrible. Unless they, too, had a mountain of baggage that went hand in hand with having a parent whom people whispered about and from whose daughter they kept their own children far away.
The daughter of Lucifer would probably understand that kind of pain better than anyone.
Ari attempted to usher Katherine back to the car, but she stepped away from him, moving closer to the archdemon.
Leviathan stretched out her hand briefly before letting it drop. “I know you, Katherine. I know what drives you to protect this island, and I know what dreams haunt your sleep. No one understands you like I do. We are two sides of the same coin. I am here to protect you, for you are too good to fight what’s coming.”
“This is bullshit,” Ari growled telepathically.
Katherine’s vision grayed as one of his sonic booms erupted around them, shielding them while a straight-line wind roared down the street, blasting Leviathan violently back before she had a chance to react.
Katherine ran to the vibrating shield Ari had created, heart in her throat, but Leviathan was nowhere to be found. She spun to Ari. “She didn’t do anything to provoke such rancor!”
“She’s an archdemon, Kat. What the hell?”
Of course he wouldn’t understand. He’d led a privileged life as the son of a Viking jarl. “You would judge people based on their parents’ actions?”
“Well, if their daddy is Satan, I’d have to say…yeah.”