by J. K. Coi
Because she didn’t trust him.
That didn’t mean it wasn’t damn hard to pull away. But she did, her breathing heavy, her core pulsing and hot with desire.
Baron didn’t push, or yank her back to him. He just watched her, awareness and regret obvious in his hot gaze.
She cleared her throat and waited a moment for her heart to settle back down to a normal rhythm. “Talk. Ah…we need to. Talk,” she mumbled. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Baron ran a hand absently through his hair. His jaw clenched, and his mouth was set in a firm, stubborn line that belied the softness with which he had just kissed her. She returned his guarded expression and waited. “What do you mean?” he asked.
She was angry and hurt. Just like she’d been angry and hurt for years, though she tried to pretend she wasn’t. “Don’t,” she said, the emotion coming through in her voice. “Don’t give me any more lies. Don’t brush me off. I think I deserve better than that from you.”
“No, you’re absolutely right.” He sighed. “Come with me.”
Chapter Nine
He took her hand. She wanted to resist and started to tug it back, but he pulled her along with him anyway, leading her out of the kitchen and down the hall.
“This had better be good, Baron,” she sighed, letting him drag her into his bedroom. It had better be really good, she thought, since his room was not a place she was eager to spend more time in.
Once there, he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her down beside him. “Ask me anything,” he said. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But be warned, you may not like it and you probably won’t believe me. It’s going to sound pretty out there.” He was avoiding looking right at her. Wow, was he actually nervous?
She laughed. “Out there? You think anything you have to tell me is more ‘out there’ than what I’ve been through in the last twenty-four hours?”
“You might be surprised.”
She crossed her arms in front of her chest and scootched backward so they faced each other from what she considered a safe distance—at least as safe as she could get without leaving the room entirely. It might have seemed cowardly, but it was more a matter of self-preservation. If they were going to have this conversation, then she wanted some distance between them so she could see in his eyes whether he told the truth.
“All right. First tell me what’s up with you—with this setup you’ve got here. What’s the deal?”
“The deal?”
She barked out a laugh ripe with cynicism and shook her head. “It’s like that already, is it? And here I thought you were going to be straight with me for once.”
“I am—I will.” Baron groaned, rubbing his eyes brusquely with the pads of his fingers. “But it’s not so easy, Max. These are things I didn’t think I would ever be telling you.”
Of course not, because he never planned to see me again.
Why did that have to hurt so damn much? Why did he have that power over her still?
Hell.
“I’m very sure of that,” she replied, her tone biting and dry with mockery—for herself. “That’s fine. You know, we really don’t have to do this at all. I don’t need to know the sordid details of your life.” Max swiveled her legs to the floor and pushed her hands hard against her thighs as she rose from the bed. “You just show me the door to this hellhole, and I’ll be on my way home now. Thanks for everything and all that, but if it’s just the same to both of you Silver brothers, I’m done being put between you.” Barely controlled rage clouded her vision. “Call your brother, Baron. Preferably before he’s fucking dead, and leave me the hell out of it from now on.”
As she turned her back to him so she could make her spectacular exit—which, in typical Maxine-style, would probably have had her heading right for the bathroom door—Baron grabbed both of her arms and turned her back around, adding a sharp shake for good measure.
“That’s it.” His voice was low, but Max wasn’t deceived into thinking he was unaffected. Far from it. A growl of what could only be murderous frustration rumbled from between his clenched teeth. His odd silver eyes were glowing with a fire that threatened to unleash a blaze of such intense emotion, she was forced to draw back from it or come away burned.
But Baron was having none of that. His hands on her remained firm and unyielding, though he wasn’t hurting her. “Don’t. Push. Me.” The words came out in a harsh, guttural rumble that sounded less like human and more like bear.
This is the point where, if she were a smart new vampire, Max would shut up and politely sit back down on the nice cushy bed to hear him out.
“Fuck you,” she spat instead, wrenching her arms from his grasp and stumbling back, her heart racing with adrenaline and anger. “You don’t get a break. You don’t deserve anything but contempt for the way you’ve treated Jackson.”
Baron’s bark of laughter was cutting and spiteful. “You mean for the way I’ve treated you, don’t you, Max? Isn’t that what this is really about?”
* * * * *
Oh shit. I didn’t really say that to her, did I?
Oh yes, he sure had.
And he hadn’t even meant it. Baron knew how much Max loved his brother, that any anger she felt toward him was a direct result of his desertion of Jackson and was nothing personal. Hadn’t she always made it crystal clear that Jackson was the only reason she bothered to remember Baron’s name?
“Look, I didn’t mean it—” he started, but the words fell away from his lips as he met her eyes, eyes that glowed darkly, her pupils cloudy with a swirl of angry red.
Max had been doing so well. She’d been so strong and steady that, for a while, he’d almost been able to forget what she was. Even the whole teeth sinking into his jugular thing hadn’t pounded that reality home to him as succinctly as the look in her eyes right now.
Vampire.
Her incisors had grown long again, the tips protruding slightly from the edges of her mouth. She curled her lip upward in a low growl, revealing the fangs to him in all their razor-sharp, I’m-going-to-enjoy-killing-you glory. As he watched, Max’s normally short, clipped fingernails grew to long talons, feral looking and deadly. She clenched her fists together, pressing those points deep into the fleshy pads of her palms, drawing her own blood, although he doubted she noticed.
“You bastard,” she snarled, just before she lunged across the room at him. The sight of Max—his Max—in the grip of such an unnatural, killing fury was his worst fear come to life.
She struck with a hard swipe of her claws across his face. He was able to lean back, but not fast enough to avoid the hit entirely, and he hissed with pain as she sliced his left cheek open.
Baron had obviously hurt and angered her with his thoughtless remark, and a good hard slap across the face would have been normal and just what he deserved for being so crass and insensitive. This reaction was about twenty leagues past normal.
He dodged Max’s next pass. Although he could have just barreled through her attack and taken her down, he didn’t want to hurt her, so he waited. Her breathing was fast and heavy, and her eyes a deep blood red. He had to finish this before she ended up doing something she would later regret. Before Baron was forced to do something he would regret.
She was quick and strong, and her first shot had taken him off guard, but Baron’s experience and training kicked in and he was easily able to avoid getting cut again. Getting close enough to her to subdue her attack without hurting her in the process was another story, but when she next swung at him, he was ready. He grabbed her wrist, pulling her past him and sending her off balance, then he twisted his body behind her.
Trapping her arms in an X across her chest, he held her firmly against him—needing to use his whole body to keep her immobile as she squirmed and bucked, trying to break free of his grasp.
As an Immortal, Baron’s talents included the ability to sense and manipulate the psychic energy of others. Right now, he felt a psychic
presence surrounding Max—a hostile, inhuman presence that was all too familiar.
He’d noticed the same pattern in his dealings with Devon, and again when Max had lain unconscious last night during the turn. Then, Baron’s powers had allowed him to meld his mind with hers and lend her his strength. He’d helped her fight the vampire’s invasion so it couldn’t pollute her soul with its sick, tainted blood even though it transformed her body.
Baron had drawn on his powers to help her hold back the thick miasma of telepathic sludge that threatened to drown her—and he thought he’d succeeded, but now he saw just how desperately she still fought the demon.
“Max, stop,” he ordered, his mouth close to her ear. With every strained, frantic breath, her breasts rose to press against the arm he had wrapped around her chest. “Stop it. Come back to me.” Please.
He didn’t think she heard. Her struggle was inward now, and he ached for what she was going through, wishing he could fight the battle for her.
But Max had to get through this on her own. He knew it, even though it was so hard to step back. No matter how much he wanted to banish the monster for her, to take it out with a flick of his wrist and slice of his blade, it was not so easy this time—and this particular battle was not his to fight.
“You can do it, baby.” He kept talking to her, telling her that he believed in her strength.
She growled and hissed like a feral animal trapped in a cage, thrashing violently against him, but Baron’s Immortal strength was greater than hers and he held her easily in his arms, taking care to make sure she couldn’t hurt herself.
There was nothing more that he could do, save wait to see whether she could rein in the demon, or whether it would take control and destroy her completely—leaving Baron to deal with a vampire gone rogue.
After long, tense moments of strained bodies and whispered words, furious struggle and ragged breathing, Max’s body suddenly stilled, all of her muscles rock solid as they bunched and seized.
Finally, the hostile psychic energy surrounding her was starting to fade. She sagged in his arms and would have fallen in a heap to the floor, but he tightened his hold around her waist to keep her upright.
“Baron.” She clutched at his arm. He was relieved to feel only smooth fingertips gripping him, and not the spear-like claws that she’d been sporting only moments ago.
“Shhh.” His head fell to the curve of her neck and he dropped a kiss onto her skin, noting how cool it was to the touch of his mouth.
He needed to just hold her close. To breathe her in and hold her without restraining her, without fear clogging his pores.
He tried, but the fear was still there, a palpable, sour taste in his mouth. He swallowed convulsively and sighed, forcing his arms to loosen their hold.
That had been bad.
And way too fucking close.
Max turned in his arms and buried her face into his chest, her fists clutching handfuls of his shirt to her cheeks. Her sobs came hard and fast. Dry sobs, violent, heaving breaths that tore at the walls of his heart.
He waited for the tears, but they didn’t fall. Of course, Max never cried. He almost wished she would this time. She could cry on him until they both drowned if it meant he could keep holding her and that she was whole and safe—and still his Maxine.
They remained like that for a long, long time. When Max ultimately released her hold on his shirt and pulled back, her face was splotchy and red, but at least her eyes were a clear deep-blue once more.
She touched his still bleeding cheek and looked into his eyes with an expression of horror. “I could have killed you.”
Baron turned his face from the exquisite torture of her gentle touch. She wouldn’t be so concerned if she knew the truth about him. “I doubt it,” he muttered.
She was looking down at her splayed hands. “Look at them,” she whispered. She curled her hands into tight fists to stop them from shaking. “How normal they seem, don’t they? Soft, but capable. Just as they have always been.” Her voice broke on the last word, and Baron curled his own fingers around hers in a lame-ass attempt at comfort. “On the outside, anyway. You’d never know by looking that just under the surface…”
“Don’t, Max. Don’t do this to yourself,” he urged, bringing her fists to his mouth. She tugged her hands back, shaking her head as she met his gaze. Her eyes were dark and flat.
“Don’t do what, Baron? Don’t admit the truth? It’s not something I can really avoid, is it? Don’t be afraid? Like I can help that, either.” Her bark of laughter was strained and without an iota of humor. “I almost killed you. How do I live with that?”
“You didn’t almost kill me,” he insisted. “Trust me, I can take care of myself.”
Chapter Ten
Max forced her still-wobbly legs to take several steps backward, putting a few feet between her and Baron. She didn’t trust herself to stay within striking distance. She still felt wired and edgy…and as angry as hell. She wrapped her arms around her body, feeling chilled. “Don’t go all macho soldier boy on me, Baron. You have no idea—the strength, the power. I can feel it in me still. So much that it’s hard to control…almost impossible.” It scared her.
He gave her an odd look, and sighed. “I haven’t told you yet why I was discharged from service, have I?”
Now? He wanted to sit down like she hadn’t just tried to rip his throat out and have this conversation now?
What the hell. It had to be better than trying to decide what to do about her own impossible situation.
“No.” She felt crabby and irritated. The adrenaline was starting to wear off. “I’m pretty certain we didn’t get that far.”
“My fault, I’m sorry. I want you to know I didn’t mean it. What I said before.” He threw her a wry, very Baron-esque kind of smile that reminded Max of the boy he had been. “You always did bring out the worst in me, you know.”
Even standing apart as they were, she felt him as if their bodies were still pressed together. She was very aware of the small room and the low lighting. The air didn’t separate them, it connected them. Charged with electricity, the space between them was a conduit that fed her senses. She met his glittery eyes so full of secrets and promises, breathed deeply of his spicy vanilla scent. Her very blood flowed in time with his, her heart matching the rhythm of his, pounding in a steady, heavy beat.
Ignore it. Focus, Max. Focus.
“Ah…” What was I saying? “I don’t see how. Even when you were still at home, you avoided me as if I were going to give you rabies or something.” She intentionally said nothing about the one time he hadn’t ignored her. Instead, she reclaimed her spot on the edge of the bed.
“Max, did you really have no idea?”
“No idea about what?” What was he talking about?
Baron shook his head. “Never mind.” With a sigh he joined her on the bed, but there was a distinct gap between them this time that she didn’t have to insist on.
She should be relieved that he was finally showing a healthy sense of caution around her, but instead his reservation made Max feel more hopeless. Where before she’d dared to hope there was some way to overcome her circumstances and find a way to lead a normal life, now Max was pretty certain her fate had been sealed.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Wasn’t that the saying? She decided it was probably just as appropriate an expression to use in the case of vampires.
Thankfully, she was pulled from that train of thought as Baron continued. “I had returned home from a particularly difficult mission and was cooling my heels before being called in to debrief the higher-ups. And ah, I…I got sick.”
“Sick? How? When was this?”
“Just a few weeks before Mom died. I ended up in the hospital overnight. None of the doctors knew what was wrong, and everyone agreed that I wouldn’t have a lot of time left. I was pretty sure of it myself, too, for a while.”
“Oh my God.” Her eyes moved over his body, checking for some s
ign, but he looked healthy. Perfect. Glowing with strength and life and vitality, just as he always had. “If that’s true, then why didn’t anybody call us—I mean, your mom and Jackson? Why didn’t anyone let them know? We would have been there for you in a heartbeat. You know that.”
“I know, but I was brought to a military hospital,” he explained. “And I was totally out of it. Incoherent. I don’t remember much of it at all. There was a lot of pain, and I doubt I could have put enough words together to make any sense, much less to ask that they call my family—which they wouldn’t have done in any case.”
“Why not? If you were sick and dying, you should have had them with you.” She tried to imagine what it would be like lying alone and near death in a hospital bed by yourself. Max’s own mother had wanted someone with her at the end, even if it was the daughter she’d barely acknowledged in life.
Her heart started to ache and tears welled up in her eyes. That’s exactly where Jackson was right now. Alone.
God, she needed to get back to him.
But how could she do that in the condition she was in right now? Amazingly, Baron had been treating this whole situation as if it were something he dealt with every day. But Max was afraid to leave this room and venture into the real world. It was too hard to control the changes that were still taking place inside her, to deny the hunger that had only been barely satisfied with Baron’s blood. How could she go to Jackson when she couldn’t guarantee his safety?
Max blinked back her tears and focused on Baron’s words. She would find a way back—tomorrow—she made that promise to herself. Whether Baron decided to be a man and join her, or not. Max was going.
“The sickness came on so strong and so suddenly that the doctors were worried I might have been infected with something on purpose. So from that point, everything about my treatment was considered classified.” Baron reached for her hand, and Max let him take it. Why, she didn’t know, except that finding out he had been so close to death was a shock, and maybe she wasn’t thinking straight.