by J. K. Coi
“Well, obviously you didn’t die. I mean here you are, perfectly healthy and just as much of a jerk as ever.”
He laughed, but Max knew there were still more secrets between them. There was something else he wasn’t telling her, she could feel it.
“No, but a few times, I honestly wished I had died.”
“What is it Baron? There’s more, right? What does this have to do with your career? How did you get yourself thrown out of the military?”
“First of all, I didn’t get thrown out. I was given a medical discharge.”
“Why? Obviously, the doctors found a cure. I mean, you’re so disgustingly healthy…”
“No, actually they didn’t find a cure. None of them could ever figure out what had caused my symptoms, so the doctors refused to sign me off on a clean bill of health, which meant the government was suspicious, hemming and hawing about whether or not to let me go back to active service.”
“Suspicious? Of you?”
“No, not like that. It’s not that I was being investigated, not really. But without any clear evidence to prove I was free of the infection, since they couldn’t figure out where it came from to begin with, the doctors couldn’t give me the green light to return to my unit.”
“Still—” Max was confused. If what he said was true, this illness had come on him just before Baron suddenly and completely cut all ties with everyone at home. But why would a person do that, especially if he was fine? Baron had obviously recovered and lived to see another day—many other days, in fact—so why the act of familial desertion? And what was he doing now that he could afford to send Jackson so much money every month?
“Max.” Baron was looking at her, a rueful expression on his face that didn’t make her feel any better. There was definitely more to this story than he was letting on.
“Come on, what is it? This still doesn’t make any sense. If you were sick, you should have called your family. When you got better, why didn’t you come home?”
“I’ve been home. I haven’t been hiding or anything.”
“Hah!” Max leapt to her feet and started pacing back and forth in front of him, gearing up. She could feel the anger starting to roll around inside of her again, but this time she recognized the sharp twist in her belly, and her control over it was ironclad. Nothing was going to distract her from this conversation. It had been a long, long time coming.
“Showing up out of the blue for a day or two once a year is not called ‘coming home’. Nor is leaving town the day of your mother’s funeral before the dirt is even thrown over her casket. It’s called being a selfish asshole.”
She ignored the flare in his eyes and the warning look. “Jackson loves you,” she continued. “You were more than his brother, you were one of his only friends. And since your mom died, you are his only family left in this world. I don’t understand why you can’t see how much it hurts him. Or maybe you do see, but you just don’t care. Is that it?”
“No. That’s not it.” Baron said. He got to his feet and stalked forward to where she stood with her hands settled on her hips. It was a defensive gesture Max used when she wanted to appear tough. In reality, all she wanted to do right now was cry. But while crying might make her feel better if she’d been alone, there was no way in hell Baron was going to see her tears.
“Well, it sure as hell looks like it!”
Baron’s expression turned stormy, his eyes glittering with some unnamed emotion that Max couldn’t quite figure out. What did he have to be angry or upset about? He’s the one who left.
Damn it. Her heart ached. Max knew she had no right to feel this way, but the truth was, she felt like Baron had left her.
Max had always been Jackson’s friend. First and foremost. There was never any doubt about it. But in her last year of high school, Jackson had been too sick to go out at all, and Max had found herself at the Silvers’ house so often she could have started paying rent.
She’d started to see past the golden-haired, popular jock with a sharp tongue to the other Baron—the one who would snap a photo of Mrs. Felker’s Chihuahua wearing a tiny top hat and tails just because Jackson would have found it hilarious. And the Baron who would sit for hours by his brother’s bedside and regale him with his sports exploits because Jackson hadn’t been able to be there and hated to feel left out. She’d started to see the Baron who sometimes looked at her as if she wasn’t a sticky, dirty wad of gum on the bottom of his shoe, who came from the wrong side of the tracks.
Oh, they’d still traded creative invectives about one another’s anatomy and barnyard origins…but they had also talked. More and more often, she would find herself hanging out with Baron, even after Jackson had fallen asleep and she should have gone home. Max had told him things about her mother that she hadn’t felt comfortable telling anyone else, not even Jackson, who had enough problems and didn’t need her unloading that kind of crap onto his frail shoulders.
He had told her things too. Things she could have sworn were from his heart. About wanting to do something important with his life, about wanting to make a difference in the world. Childish dreams really, but honorable and sweet.
And Max, who’d promised herself long before ever meeting the Silver brothers that she’d never fall for a man and end up like her mother—living alone in a trailer park, sucking a whiskey bottle every night—Max found herself falling in love.
But then Baron had left, proving that Max’s instincts about love had been just as rotten as her mother’s.
“Fuck,” she muttered. Damn him. Damn him for mattering to her, even after all this time. Damn him for everything.
“What the hell was so goddamn important, you just had to do it without me? Had to cut me out of your life so completely after making me care, making me think you cared back?”
Max realized she’d stopped speaking for Jackson. Ah, hell. The last thing she wanted was to reveal her true feelings—or to reveal that she had feelings at all.
She spun around and bolted for the door, hoping he wouldn’t follow.
No such luck. Baron caught her by both arms and turned her back to him. “Max, look at me.” He forced her chin up. She was having a hard time breathing. Her chest was too tight. She shook her head.
“No. Max, look at me,” he repeated. Waiting. Damn, knowing Baron, he would wait forever until she did what he wanted her to.
What she saw in his strange, beautiful eyes was raw, intense…passion. Desire. Heavy and hot and honest. Real.
For her.
Max not only saw it in his eyes, but all of a sudden she could feel it. She gasped, the force of his feelings causing a matching thrum in her. The heat radiated off him like he was purposely projecting it outward, and in a wave of intensity, it crashed into her.
How she was sensing this, she didn’t know, but Max recognized the ability as coming from that new, other part of her, and wondered briefly why she wasn’t able to read Baron so easily all the time.
“Max, I did care. I do care.” Baron’s hands were still heavy on her shoulders, holding her still. He was probably afraid she would run—which she desperately wanted to do. Staying here and having this conversation after blurting out how she’d felt for him all this time was torture. She’d almost rather be facing off against Devon again.
“I care too much. I always did. Couldn’t you see that?”
“No.” She shook her head. No. She hadn’t seen that. Hadn’t known that.
But that wasn’t entirely true, was it? She remembered the night Baron had taken her to the spring formal.
She’d told Jackson she wasn’t going to go, since he was too sick to go too, but he was having none of it, and kept insisting she needed to be there. He said he didn’t want her to regret missing out on the important moments of her youth because she had hung out with him in a sick room day and night—Jackson had always been deep and sensitive like that, even at his young age.
Max tried to tell him it didn’t matter to her, but he could be st
ubborn when he wanted to be—he and his brother were a lot alike in that respect. Anyways, she said, she didn’t even have a dress. But Jackson surprised her, saying that “they” had gotten one for her, “they” had known she would use such a lame excuse. She had known then that “they” included Baron, especially when he walked in and said he would be pleased to be her escort.
Max had refused of course. She was convinced that Jackson had begged Baron to do it, to take her on as a charity case, and movie clips from Stephen King’s Carrie started rolling in her head.
Neither of them had given up, though. They had everything figured out, and after an hour of arguing, in the end, she’d reluctantly agreed.
That night Baron had been attentive and courteous. There were no snide little digs between them…and no Jackson. All of his attention had been focused on her, and hers on him. And at times, she thought she’d seen something in his expression, an almost longing—which she’d dismissed without a second thought so that she could enjoy a carefree night the likes of which didn’t come around very often for someone like her.
They’d danced together, ate too much from the buffet table, and drank cup after cup of the sweet, fruity punch, and when the party was over, Max hadn’t wanted the night to end. She told Baron not to bring her home right away, wanting to postpone the reality that awaited her at home.
Baron seemed to understand, and he’d driven the car around town until they found themselves passing a dark, quiet park. He had stopped there and turned the radio down low. They talked for a while…and then he’d kissed her. Almost as if he hadn’t meant to, but couldn’t help himself. It had started out sweet and soft, but Max had soon been eager for more and things had gotten carried away before Baron himself had stopped them from going too far.
She saw the memory of that kiss in his eyes now.
She saw other things too—like the way he’d looked at her sometimes when he didn’t think she noticed, and how he never seemed to judge her for the weaknesses of her mother, the absence of her father, but had subtly challenged her to be better and do more.
“Why?”
Baron sighed, and dropped his hands from her arms. “Why? God, Max. I may be an asshole, but I had some honor—at least back then I thought I did.”
“Honor?” She shook her head. “What has that got to do with anything? After the night of the spring formal, you had to know how I felt about you. And you just left. If you cared for me too…”
“I had no right. You’re not mine to care for.”
“Not yours? You’re acting like I already belonged—”
“To Jackson. To my brother.”
Somehow, she had known he was going to say that.
“Jackson and I are friends, Baron. If you wanted to think up an excuse, you could have come up with a better one than—”
“You may see him only as a friend, Max. But I always knew the truth.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Are you really going to tell me you don’t know how he feels about you?” Baron asked. “Are you going to stand there and pretend that he doesn’t worship the ground you walk on, that Jackson hasn’t been head over heels in love with you since the day you first walked through our front door?”
No, that was something Max couldn’t say. She knew. She’d always known.
“What kind of man hits on his sick brother’s only friend in the world, Max?” He frowned. “What kind of man falls in love with his brother’s girl?”
How could he tell her this now? How could he expect her to believe that he loved her yet had turned and walked away because of her friendship with Jackson? Didn’t he know that made everything worse? When she thought of what they could have had together, all that wasted time…and now it was too late.
She shook her head. “Love? You’re going to call that love? Nuh uh, Baron. You didn’t even give love a chance.” Max let out a heavy sigh of exasperation. “Did Jackson know how you felt?” Suddenly she knew. “He did, didn’t he? And he tried to tell you it was all right. Why else would he have asked you to take me to that dance?”
Baron shook his head. “No, he didn’t—”
Max laughed. “Of course he did. Your brother might be sick, but he is far from stupid or blind.” Unlike me, obviously.
“Shit.”
“So that’s it, huh? Nobody thought to ask what I might want?” She saw her answer in his expression and looked away, her eyes burning. When she could turn back, she said, “You know, Jackson and I had a conversation about six months before you enlisted. He told me he was in love with me, and I told him that I loved him too.”
Baron looked surprised. “You—you did? You do? I mean, you told him that?”
“Yes. I said that he was the closest thing I had to a real family, and that I loved him like a brother. We both agreed that there were more important things than sex between us, and we would never let something like that ruin our friendship. Life’s too short…” She couldn’t go on.
God, Jackson was dying. Her best friend was dying.
“I’ve had enough of this, Baron.” Fighting back the tears, she shook her head. “He needs me, and you…don’t.” Even though her heart was so far up her throat she might choke on it, she forced the quiver out of her voice. “You don’t deserve my time when his is so short.”
“I know.”
“So say what you want to say, or don’t. I don’t care anymore. I have to get out of here.” Max didn’t dare meet his eyes, for fear he would see the guilt that would betray her for the horrible friend she really was—because a part of her did still care. A part of her didn’t want to leave.
“Look, I want to tell you, and you deserve to know,” he said. “I wasn’t actually sick. When the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me…it wasn’t an illness, not really.”
She met his gaze, confused. “What do you mean? But you just said—”
“You were never supposed to know. Any of it, but—”
“God Baron, just spit it out already.” Max was going to punch him if he kept this up. She hated it. All these crazy ups and downs were draining her to the point of an emotional breakdown.
“I’m not human anymore.”
Chapter Eleven
Diana watched her husband sleep.
In sleep, at least, he could put no barriers between them. The hard, protective man that he was could relax his ironclad vigilance for just a little while.
How she loved him.
But he was driving her crazy.
Since this problem with the vampire had come up, Alric had gotten overly protective in a severely big way. She hadn’t said anything and she wasn’t going to, because she understood what it was like to worry about someone. She knew what it was like to lose something precious.
Understanding a thing didn’t make it any easier to deal with, though. God’s teeth, she was well aware of that.
With a sigh, she traced a finger along the stubbly line of his strong jaw, watching as his lips pursed and then relaxed. They’d been through so much, she and her warrior. Individually and together. When she thought of what it must have been like for him all those years, trapped and alone…
Diana shivered, though the bedroom was warm. The memories from the day she had found him in that underground prison were vivid in her mind. She could see his arms and legs manacled to the walls, his eyes so full of pain and madness. It never failed to bring tears to her eyes. Sometimes she had dreams about it, but in her dreams she was always too late to save him. His body was nothing but a skeleton, eye sockets empty and dead. But he wasn’t. He’d survived there for almost a hundred years…and now he was here with her.
It had taken so much strength and courage—from both of them—before Alric had been able to embrace his humanity again. But he had. He’d managed to hold on to enough of his sanity to return from the very edge, and he had showed her he was capable of such great tenderness and love.
* * * * *
Not human anymore?
Max was going to kill him. How dare he play with her like this, treating her situation like a big fucking joke?
“Baron—” Her voice came out choked, rage preventing her from controlling it any longer. “That’s not funny. Don’t you dare use what happened to me to make sick jokes like that.”
“Oh, baby, trust me.” He sounded almost sad. Tired and sad. “I would never do that. This is so far from funny.”
“No kidding. Then what the hell is going on? What did you mean by that?”
“I meant what I said.” He took a deep breath. “It’s hard to explain, but it’s true. Essentially, when I ended up in the hospital, I was going through the transition.”
“Transition? What kind of transition?”
“Honestly, it’s a lot like what you went through when the vampire turned you, but without the vicious attack and blood loss.”
“I still don’t follow. Which is understandable, because you aren’t making any sense. What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t learn any of the details until after everything was already said and done—when I met Rhys and the others and they brought me here.” Now Baron was the one sitting on the edge of the bed. He put his head in his hands.
“There’s a group. Of men. Who’ve been around a long time.” He choked out a laugh. “A long time. They’re called Immortals, and there’s a reason for that.”
“Immortals.” Was she supposed to believe this?
“Yeah. I guess back in the beginning—like the beginning of everything—the earth was overrun by…demons.”
“Demons.” Had she really heard that right? “Like hellfire and horns and shit? Are you kidding me?”
“I wish I were. Really.”
He sounded so solemn, so un-Baron-like that Max bit back her snort of disbelief and urged him to continue. “Okay, I’ll bite. Go on.”