My skin vibrated where he was touching me. As much as I wanted to bask in the beautiful sensation, I quickly pulled my leg away, breaking off all contact between us.
“I’m sorry,” he said, eyeing my leg apologetically. “I wasn’t trying to—”
“I know.”
A short stint of silence passed between us as though cleansing the air of the awkward moment. Neither one of us said anything as he upshifted and then veered onto the highway that would take us into town. I watched his profile as he drove, taking in all the edges to his face, the way his ebony hair skirted passed his chin, the way his jaw line hardened when he concentrated. I was putting him together again in my mind, making him real again, and I hadn’t even realized I was doing it.
“So, this boyfriend of yours…” He paused and smiled at me. “Does he go to Weston?”
I put my game face back on. “No, he doesn’t,” I said and crossed my arms. I couldn’t even begin to describe my level of discomfort in that moment.
“So, he goes to Easton Prep then,” he surmised, rubbing his jaw.
“He doesn’t go to school anymore,” I said and threw my focus back to the plush green foliage and looming evergreens as they zipped by us in a blur. I’d hoped that by turning my attention away from him, it would cue the end of the interrogation.
“Did he drop out?” he continued, unfazed.
I turned and met his curious eyes. “Didn’t you have something you wanted to talk to me about or are you going to quiz me about my boyfriend the whole way?”
Another dimpled grin blessed his face, making my heart speed up in my chest. This was becoming an impossible task. And why the hell was Temple so damn far away anyway?!
“I was kind of hoping I could do both,” he said, his vibrant blue eyes twinkling with charm and mischief.
I fought away the urge to smile back at him. For fuck’s sake, I wasn’t here to make googly eyes at the guy. I had to keep my poker face tight. “Well, you have like five minutes,” I warned, knowing the route to Temple like the back of my hands. “You better make it quick because I won’t be doing this with you again.”
His eyebrows creased as his beautiful smile dropped from his face. “Did I do something to you? Something before my accident?” There was so much swirling in his tone, it was hard to distinguish each note. Fear. Confusion. Sadness. Worry. They were all fighting for dominance in his voice—his eyes—as though they couldn’t decide which one to lead with.
What an odd question. “Why would you think that?”
He didn’t look at me when he answered. “Because it’s pretty obvious you don’t like me,” he said plainly and then upshifted again as he steered the Mustang into the passing lane. “I figure, I must’ve done something to you.”
Sorrow thickened in my throat. I hated this. I hated avoiding him. I hated lying to him. I hated making him feel as if he’d done something wrong—something bad. He didn’t deserve any of that. He had been the kindest, sweetest, most protective guy the entire time we were together. This wasn’t fair to him.
But what was the alternative? Tell him the truth and risk triggering his memories? That wasn’t even an option as far as I was concerned. Not now anyway. Maybe not ever.
For the faintest of moments, I let my guard down a little. “You never did anything to me, Trace. You were always the perfect gentleman.”
His eyes slid back to mine, a little less weighty this time, though still very much unsettled. “Then why does it feel like you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you.” I could never hate you.
“But you don’t want to be around me,” he concluded.
I shook my head. “I told you, I have a boyfriend.”
“And what’s the problem?” His brows arched when he asked, “Does he not let you talk to other guys?”
I resisted the urge to laugh as I thought about some guy *trying* to tell me who I could and could not talk to. Then again, it sounded like a perfectly usable excuse right now. You know, trying to respect the “boyfriend’s” feelings and all. “It’s not that he doesn’t let me, but he’s not comfortable with me hanging out with other guys.” It took every morsel of strength I had not to roll my eyes at myself as the words sounded back to me.
“He sounds really insecure.” He looked at me again, his eyes gliding down my body as though trying to get a deeper read on me. “Does he have a reason to be?”
“Are you asking me if I cheat on him?” I gaped at him. “The answer is no,” I said, before he could confirm or deny the insulting question.
“Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just trying to figure you out,” he said as he merged into the exiting lane.
“Well, maybe you should just quit while you’re ahead,” I suggested tartly.
“So, I’m guessing a date is out of the question then?” The smirk on his face should have been illegal.
My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe his tenacity. Apparently, the amnesia had erased a lot more than just his memories. It also erased all the caution and heartbreak he used to wear like a second skin.
“Yes, Trace, a date is out of the question. Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said?”
“Alright, alright. I’ll drop it.” He winked at me and then flashed his panty-dropping dimples. “For now.”
I rolled my eyes at him and turned my attention to the intersection we were stopped at. Temple was less than a mile away, and I’d somehow survived the drive with Trace, but something was telling me this wouldn’t be the end of it. Glancing back at him, I caught him staring at me. He looked like a kid who’d just gotten a double scoop of his favorite ice cream.
This drive was meant to quell his curiosity and hopefully, send him running in the opposite direction. But somehow, I’d managed to do exactly the opposite.
“Stop staring at me,” I said, my heart rate picking up its pace under the intensity of his eyes.
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I wish I could.”
And now my heart was galloping wildly like a mustang spotting an opening in the barracks. I turned away again and this time, I kept my eyes averted until we came to a stop in front of Temple. Not that it helped the situation much. You could literally feel the tension in the car, riding along with us like a third wheel that nobody invited.
I sprang into action the minute he put the car in park. “Thank you for the ride,” I said as I unclicked my seatbelt and threw open the door like it was on fire.
“Jemma?” He snagged my hand before I could make a run for it.
The most beautiful, pulsing sensations vibrated all over my body as his skin made contact with mine. A slow grin spread across his lips as his eyes met mine. If there was any doubt in my mind before, it was completely gone now. He felt it too and by the eager look on his face, he knew exactly what it meant.
“It means you’re my soulmate,” he answered me, a smirk hanging lazily from the corner of his lips.
I pulled my hand free and shook my head at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I feel that every time I touch anybody. It means absolutely nothing.”
His smile faltered for a moment but quickly returned like a dog with a bone. “You’re lying, and you’re not even doing a good job of it.”
I fixed him with my best poker face. “I already told you, I have no reason to lie to you.”
“I think you do,” he said, refusing to back down this time. “I’m not sure what it is yet, but I plan on finding out.”
And with that, I climbed out of his car and shut the door, knowing as surely as the sun would set tonight that this thing with Trace wasn’t even almost over.
In fact, it had only just begun.
16. A LOOMING STORM
I walked into Temple feeling as though I’d just been run over by an eighteen-wheeler. My meeting with Trace had gone all kinds of wrong, and that was putting it mildly. My hope had been to ease his suspicion and establish a nice thick line between the two of us; at least until I
figured out how to keep him safe from his memories. But instead, I roused his curiosity and somehow managed to allow him to discover that we were soulmates—something I still didn’t even fully understand myself.
But he sure did.
Shaking off my stupor, I entered the atrium and waited for the Senior Magister to meet me. As with most things in my life, I had no other choice but to temporarily compartmentalize this thing with Trace in order to stay sharp for whatever bombshell the Magister was about to drop on me. Because no doubt, there would be a bomb and it was going to be huge.
“Jemma, I’m glad you could make it,” said William as he walked across the atrium to greet me a few minutes later.
I had been standing by some ancient looking statue, wondering who the heck the dude was. Frankly, these weren’t the kinds of people you’d ever read about in a history book, so I didn’t feel so bad for not knowing him. “Well, they cancelled my spa appointment, so I figured I had some time to spare.”
He smiled at my lame attempt to keep the mood light and then extended his arm. “The Council is meeting in the study. Shall we join them?”
“Lead the way,” I said and then followed him across the atrium.
Neither one of us said anything as we turned down a narrow corridor that led to a closed door at the end of the hall. I couldn’t help but feel like I was walking the green mile as he opened the door and then ushered me inside.
My eyes took in the long wooden conference table at the center of the room and then the four people seated; three men and one woman. All of which were wearing similar cassocks to Willian and staring at me with sharp, expectant eyes. I immediately recognized the man with the salt-and-pepper hair as Alford Benedict and nodded to him.
“Have a seat, my dear,” said William as he pulled out the chair at the head of the table for me.
My legs were starting to shake a little, but I never let on as I marched to the chair and sat down. I had to keep my game face on. These people were like rabid dogs—they could smell fear a mile away.
“I believe you’ve already met Alford. This is Prudence, Jeremiah, and Zachary,” he said, gesturing to each of the High Council members. “This is Jemma Blackburn.”
“We’ve heard a lot about you,” said Prudence in a contrite tone that had me believe the stories were less than flattering.
“Yeah, well, people tend to talk about you when you’re the only living Blood-Descendant of Lucifer.”
Zachary’s mouth pinched as Prudence audibly gasped. Yeesh, tough room. That wasn’t exactly the reaction I was going for. Then again, I was sitting in room full of snooty old crones—what else did I expect?
“Alrighty then,” I muttered to myself and then turned to William as he sat down in the chair to my right. “So, now that we’re all super acquainted, I believe we have a special project to discuss?” Frankly, I was practically foaming at the mouth to find out exactly what had gotten the entire Council in such a tizzy.
“Yes, of course.” Smoothing out his cassock, William discreetly eyed his councilmen and then settled his eyes on me. “As you know from our last meeting, the Order has been tracking something…new,” he said, as though struggling to find the right word to describe it.
My eyebrows shot up. “Something new?” I verified, taken aback by the newly discovered fact that the Council had actually not seen and done it all. “Are we talking about a new strain of vampire here, or like, something worse?”
“I’m afraid it appears to be much worse than that,” answered William. “While we’re not entirely sure exactly what it is we’re dealing with yet, we have gathered enough information to know that something is indeed stirring; something very old and dangerous that potentially poses a terrible risk to us all. This is why we must act quickly—”
“Hold up.” I held up my hand to halt him. “How do you know it’s a threat to us if you’re not even sure what it is?” Something wasn’t making sense here. Either they were yanking my chain, or they were keeping information from me. Neither one was going to play out well for them.
“Well, for one,” he said as he poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher at the center of the table, “there’s been some talk among the demon kind.”
No surprise there. Demons were some of the gabbiest mother-pluckers I’d ever encountered. I leaned into the table. “You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”
He rose the pitcher to me, offering me a glass of water to which I shook my head. “There have been whispers coming up from the underworld for weeks now. Cracks in the walls, if you will. Every city, every country, every continent across the globe is sensing the same darkness, hearing the same warning…”
I swallowed against the thick ball at the back of my throat. “What warning?”
“That the end is upon us.”
I stared at him for a moment and then said, “That’s it?” All my panic melted away as I realized this was obviously a false alarm. “With all due respect, Magister, the end was already upon us, remember? It was knocking on our door and I sent him back to hell. Maybe the demons are getting their dates mixed up or just haven’t heard the good news yet?”
It seemed plausible enough to me. Especially since we’d already done the whole end-of-the-world-is-coming and we all knew how that worked out.
“This isn’t about Lucifer. Well, not directly,” he said as he took a sip from his water glass. “Though we do suspect his release from Hell is what set this whole thing in motion.”
A pang of guilt slashed its way through my insides because I knew that whatever it was making its way through the weakened walls was doing so because of me. Because of what happened when the walls around the realm of Sanguinarium came down and I accidently unleashed Lucifer into our world.
“So, what exactly is this thing anyway?” I asked, bouncing a look between the lot of them. “You must have some ideas,” I charged, certain that they weren’t coming into this meeting as empty-handed as they wanted me to believe.
William looked between his councilmen and then settled his somber eyes on me. “Are you at all familiar with The Book of Revelation?” he asked, completely taking me by surprise.
“The bible?” I shrugged my shoulder. I wasn’t sure how to answer that. My father wasn’t exactly a religious man and we rarely ever attended church except on holidays, though I wasn’t about to tell them that. “I mean, a little bit, I guess.”
Something in his expression changed; darkened. “Then you’ve heard about The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse?”
The Four Horsemen of the what now?!
I wasn’t sure how long I’d gaped at him before I finally spoke. “You’re not actually trying to tell me that’s what you’ve been tracking, are you?” I felt the muscle under my right eye twitch as I waited for him to answer.
“We already know that all four of the Horsemen have touched down at different access points of the continent—east, west, north and south—and appear to be heading inland,” he said as he stood up from his chair and walked to the large wall-to-wall bookcase. “What we don’t know,” he said as he removed a book from the shelf and then pushed a button, “is what their intentions are.”
The wall behind him shifted backwards by half a foot as another wall slide in to take its place. There were several flat screen TVs anchored to it, each one playing a different news channel from a different part of the world.
My eyes bounced around the screen as I tried to take in what they were reporting.
“The Center of Disease Control has yet to release a concrete figure on the exact number of deaths thus far but warns Americans to be braced for a severe flu outbreak this season…” The new broadcasters voice faded away as my attention moved to the next screen. “About two quarters of the global pig population is expected to die as a result of an epidemic of African swine fever, according to the intergovernmental organization responsible for coordinating animal disease control…” And then the next screen, “The Food and Drug Administration and
the CDC are investigating a multistate outbreak of E. coli infections linked to the lettuce. Two hundred and sixty people have already been infected in 22 states, according to the alert, and that number is steadily rising…”
My stomach hollowed out as a violent tremor tore through my body. I wanted to cover my ears and shut my eyes to the horrific images on the screens, but I couldn’t seem to look away.
As if hearing my inner plight, William pointed the remote control to the screens and cut the broadcasts.
“None of this is a coincidence,” informed Jeremiah, his dirty blond hair slicked neatly back. “The Horsemen’s mere presence has been inciting chaos throughout our world and the underworld, and if there’s one thing demons thrive on, it’s chaos.”
“We’ve already seen an uptick in violence related crimes, and as you can clearly see,” continued William as he gestured to the screens, “several large-scale outbreaks which coincide with precisely the moment they touched down.”
I tried to answer them, to acknowledge that I was understanding the words that were coming out of their mouths, but I couldn’t get my brain to cooperate. I was literally frozen stupid.
“We know they’re here for a reason. What we don’t know is what that reason is. The only information we have to go on is that,” he said, pointing to the TV screen again, his eyes as troubled and despondent as his voice sounded.
I shook my head at the horror of it all. This was bad. Like really bad.
“As it stands, the whole lot of us are just waiting in the dark for them to rear their heads and make their intentions known with the hope that it will not be too late for us to do anything should their intentions prove to be nefarious.” His usual kind eyes turned serious, colder—far colder than I’d ever seen them before. “We cannot not be in the dark, Jemma, as I’m sure you can understand. We must be prepared at all costs.”
He had me there. I scrubbed a hand over my face and tried to jolt myself out of my stupor.
“So, what’s the plan then?” I finally managed to ask; my eyes fixed on William as I searched for a slither of hope in the shitstorm he just drowned me in. The Council brought me here for a reason. Of that I was sure. “I’m guessing you want me to get in good with the demon folk and try to find out what they know?”
Incarnate: A Dark Paranormal Romance (The Marked Saga Book 5) Page 13